The Photographer Gets Photographed
During the time we filmed “Frame of Mind”, I was an undergraduate student about to receive my degree. I was in a beautiful season where the world felt fresh and open to me. I delighted in the work I was pressing into and the path I had set out to sail. The previous summer, I went on a leadership training retreat in Baja, Mexico, I remember the Lord saying, “You will do that thing you keep thinking about”. But God never called out anything specific. All I knew, was that He was deeply and directly calling me to follow Him into a creative journey, and resurrected my inner artist.
As I approached the end of my academic journey, the Lord began pursuing my creative heart, filling me with a passion and energy unlike anything I had experienced before. He was calling me to pick up my tools and step out in faith—to press into my craft and embrace the talents He had given me. When the Abiding Practice team expressed their interest in featuring me as a photographer, I was ecstatic. For an artist, getting exposure is monumental. When other people notice your gifting, it’s a sort of validation you receive that affirms you are doing something right.
Conversely, getting exposure as an artist can put you in a tender space. Artists are often sensitive people by nature. When this moment of exposure came for me as a young artist, I began to feel the need to express some other idealized version of myself. I thought the filmmakers needed someone that was cool and creative to make the film interesting, and didn’t believe my true self was enough. During the shoot, I followed David and Tim’s vision and fell into a flow by the end of the day that was magical, but looking back, I realize that I wasn’t carrying the confidence of Christ in me.
Caught by the Light
As the subject, standing in front of a camera lens is an uncertain space. You have no other option, but to trust what the photographer sees. Of course we want to look good on camera, but more than that, I think we all desire to feel deeply connected to our truest, most sincere selves—and to be fully alive in the process. Mysteriously, when a camera is pointed at you, it brings up certain emotions that can reveal the condition of your internal foundations. We are caught vulnerable in the light, and the light reveals deeper parts of ourselves that ultimately need to be touched by the Truest Light, and met by the most Real of Loves.
Jesus spoke of a parable about a lamp that I love. After lighting a lamp, you put it on a stand, not under a jar or under a bed, so that those who enter the room may see the light. Then he says, “For nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to the light” (Luke 8:17). What was becoming known to me during the making of this film, was that I was deeply unsure of who I was in Christ, and who Christ had made me to be.
The result of an artist not having deeply formed roots in their identity can become detrimental to their potential and God’s call upon their life. Self-doubt, falsehood, insecurities, comparison, jealousies, and strife can all become a product of an unstable foundation. It is the life lived in fear. At the time of this filming, I was agreeing with untruths that God never commanded nor desired for me. I began to hide behind the person I desired to be. I felt that if I was honest, I wouldn’t be fully accepted. Self-imposed pain is hard to face.
Broken Pieces Build Bridges
Having had some distance from this insecure moment in my life, and after some wonderful mentorships and adventures in personal-discovery this last year, I keep returning to this project and realizing that the way I felt then, has now become a way for me to connect with subjects as they are standing in front of my camera. A year ago, I was an artist who was afraid to live in her identity, and my art suffered. What changed everything was realizing that Christ had been calling me to simply be His beloved daughter. To accept the gift of Holy freedom.
Part of what God taught me through this process, is that when we let the darkness of untruth settle in too comfortably, we suppress the light we long to let out. The longer the darkness lingers, the more we doubt the light of God living within. To my subjects who are unsure, vulnerable, and in need of someone to help them open the door to let their own light shine, I say, “To be seen on the deepest level, we must let go and let the light in”. To myself, I say the same thing.
It requires faith to let the light in, and faith to let it out. But we need to do this because, “No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar or under a basket, but on a stand, so that those who enter may see the light…” (Luke 11:33).
Be Free to Set Free
A photograph cannot exist without light. The world itself wouldn’t exist without the command “Let there be light”. The Light that created the world lives in you, The Spirit of God. We cannot be afraid of the light within. The more I slowly began to trust the light of Him who dwells within me and to be present in that co-dwelling, the more I felt free to create and be who I was made to be.
My absolute favorite shot from the entire film is the very last scene. Abby and I were just free in the moment, fully present and alive, and the awareness of being filmed fell away into the background. Rewatching it is still magical, and I can feel the joy of that day living in me now.
We all need to choose this freedom. Otherwise, the things we love most in life — beauty, connection, goodness, friendship — wouldn’t find their fullest expression. If we shun the Light that is calling us to freedom within, we won’t be able to create those spaces of freedom for others. To see deeply, you must be seen deeply. And to set others free, you must first be set free.
 | A guest post by
|