• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Shop
  • A Rocha Intl

A Rocha USA

A Rocha USA

  • About Us
    • What We Do
    • Who We Are
    • Contact Us
  • Get Involved
    • Events Calendar
    • Join the A Rocha Community
    • Tackle Plastic Pollution
    • Take Climate Action
    • Wild Wonder Curriculum
  • Donate

The Loving Eye of the Lens

A Rocha USA / June 21, 2012

By Peter Harris, Founder of A Rocha

It isn’t easy to explain the fascination of bird photography. Perhaps it is a Neanderthal hunting instinct that lies not far beneath any high-sounding aesthetic theory of the joys of capturing a memorable image? Certainly when you are lying in the mud under a bush, waiting long minutes for a thrush to decide that the worms near your lens are more appetizing that the ones over there by the stream (which when it does come nearby, it will eat for long minutes perversely facing away from the camera) then primeval responses are the ones that more readily bubble to the surface of this particular male mind. But what intrigues me is the extraordinarily and almost mythical permanence of some of the better photos that can result from patience and fieldcraft. The nano-second when a warbler is poised between two particularly lovely hawthorn flowers can last for a hundred years on a print.

Thirty years ago, with much more basic equipment, I spent a happy and muddy hour allowing a pair of Curlew Sandpipers Calidris ferruginea, newly arrived from the Arctic on a Pembrokeshire estuary, to get used to my intrusive presence. After a while they were happy feeding a couple of yards away, a slight breeze brought small ripples from the river around their legs, and at one tiny moment it made a harmonious whole when the rhythm of the fringes of their feathers echoed the river, and all was caught in the autumn light. When I got home to my bathroom turned darkroom, I made a print, and sent it to the owner of the cottage we had borrowed with a note of thanks, and thought no more of it. But we were back in the cottage again last year, and that fleeting moment is still framed on the wall. To my eyes the image catches the heart with a truth about migration and flight, and creation singing as it was made to do.

It made me think about what a loving eye can do. The lens doesn’t love, although the photographer may, but capturing the moment in an image can bring a kind of transformation that goes beyond simply looking. A passion for bird photography, and the amazement that it can express for the astonishing subjects of the lens, can speak of a loving gaze. At certain moments it can even mirror God’s loving gaze on his creation, which certainly bestows an extraordinary significance on the very ordinary, and an eternal quality on the otherwise transient. “Here today and gone tomorrow” said Jesus of the flowers and the grass – “but yet clothed by your heavenly Father.” If even our crude and digital photography confers significance and can create further beauty in a world that is created, how much more does the loving gaze of the Creator who measures the nano-seconds, and who can hear the voice of a singing creation in its constant and flight-filled movement.

Willow Warbler © Peter Harris

Willow Warbler, Phylloscopus trochilus, April 2012, voilà!

Filed Under: Planetwise Blog Tagged With: A Rocha, A Rocha USA, birds, conservation, Peter Harris

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Categories

  • A Rocha
  • A Rocha Arts
  • A Rocha Canada
  • A Rocha Ghana
  • A Rocha International
  • A Rocha Kenya
  • A Rocha Portugal
  • A Rocha USA
  • Advent
  • At Home
  • Au Sable
  • Autumn Ayers
  • Ben Lowe
  • Birds
  • Brittany Michalski
  • Bugs
  • Campus Chapters
  • Central Oregon
  • Central Texas
  • Church
  • Citizen Science
  • Climate Change
  • Climate Stewards USA
  • Climate Stewards USA
  • Community
  • Conservation
  • Core Commitments
  • Creation Care
  • Creation Care Camp
  • Dave Timmer
  • David Taylor
  • Dirt
  • Dr. Howard Snyder
  • Dr. Robert Sluka
  • Easter
  • Ecology
  • Economics
  • Ecosystems
  • Education
  • EEN
  • Election
  • Environment
  • Environmental Education
  • Extinction
  • Farm
  • Flo Oakes
  • Florida
  • Food
  • Forest
  • Global Partners
  • Gospel
  • Grant Shellhouse
  • John Elwood
  • John Stott
  • Kilns College
  • Leah Kostamo
  • Lent
  • Liuan Huska
  • Living Planet Report
  • Love Your Place
  • Marine
  • Mark McReynolds
  • Nashville
  • NW Washington
  • Partners
  • People
  • Peter Harris
  • Planet
  • Planetwise Blog
  • Plastic Pollution
  • Pollinators
  • Programs and Projects
  • Race
  • Recycling
  • Redemption
  • Resources
  • Restoration
  • Robert Campbell
  • Sabbath
  • Sandra McCracken
  • SoCal
  • Species
  • Theology
  • To Repair the World
  • Uncategorized
  • Washington DC
  • Wheaton
  • Wild Wonder
  • Worship
  • YECA

Archives

  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • August 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • August 2021
  • June 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • September 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • May 2019
  • December 2018
  • October 2018
  • August 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012

Tags

All Things Reconciled arocha A Rocha A Rocha Marine A Rocha USA arochausa biodiversity birds Christmas citizen science Climate Change Climate Stewards community conservation creation Creation Care Creation Care Camp Dave Bookless dirt environment Environmental Education explore place arocha arochausa saltandsteel trees nature farmersmarket gospel Gratitude hope International Coastal Cleanup John Elwood Kellie Haddock loveyourplace Love Your Place lynden Microplastics Toolbox Miranda Harris New Year nwwashingtonarocha Peter Harris Redemption Restoring people and places Richard Louv Sandra McCracken Seasons Texas A Rocha Tom Rowley Wild Wonder

Footer

A Rocha USA
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • ABOUT US
  • What We Do
  • Meet the Team
  • Careers and Internships
  • Contact
  • RESOURCES
  • Blog
  • Join Love Your Place
  • Multimedia
  • GET INVOLVED
  • Donate
  • Events
  • Join Our Community
  • Take Climate Action
  • Marine Conservation
  • Camp Curriculum
  • Projects

© 2016 A Rocha USA Environmental Stewardship

A Rocha USA is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, EIN 31-1751509
  • ECFA |
  • GuideStar |
  • Privacy Policy |
  • Faith Statement