Each Friday Sara Rosso posts the WordPress weekly photo challenges; here is what she said about this week’s challenge:
“Through. Often framing your photo’s composition through something else is the best thing you could do to it. It gives the viewer even more context into what your eye saw in that moment in time. Sometimes it modifies the entire tone or meaning of the photo.”
I’ve been thinking about the concept of through quite a bit lately in terms of this phase of my life. I’m currently going through a battle with cancer, and that can modify the entire tone or meaning of how I view things. Sometimes my view is through the frame of pain, other times it’s through the frustration of treatments, or through exhaustion from losing sleep, or through just being tired of dealing with all the cancer-related issues, day in and day out.
When I look through something to take a photo, I’m only capturing that scene from one angle, and if I shift my focus even a little to the right or left the scene will change. I’ve learned that it’s the same way with going through the battle with cancer. If I shift my focus from the pain, frustration, exhaustion, or day-to-day issues of dealing with cancer to a different subject, I can see my life from another angle.
I’m going through a battle with cancer, but I must choose not to focus only on the view from the battlefield, as one who has no hope. I choose to put my hope in Jesus Christ, and to believe that He will bring me through the cancer battle, and even bless me along the way. Every day I have to choose to frame my view through His word:
Philippians 4:13 tells us, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
Psalm 41:1-3 says, “Blessed is he who considers the poor; The Lord will deliver him in time of trouble. The Lord will preserve him and keep him alive, And he will be blessed on the earth; You will not deliver him to the will of his enemies. The Lord will strengthen him on his bed of illness; You will sustain him on his sickbed.”
Psalm 34:7-9 reminds us, “The angel of the Lord encamps all around those who fear Him, And delivers them. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good; Blessed is the man who trusts in Him! Oh, fear the Lord, you His saints! There is no want to those who fear Him.”
This week’s photo challenge took me through my thoughts and feelings about dealing with cancer. As others faced with cancer have said, cancer is something that happened to me, it’s not who I am. Photography is one of the ways I take my mind off of the ugliness of cancer, by focusing on the beauty of God’s creation, amusing subjects, or unusual sights and scenes.
One of my favorite ways to take photographs is by looking through something to capture a view, or to better focus on my subject or scene. I realized just how often I do that when I browsed through my albums to choose photos for this week’s challenge of through.
The first three photos are different views from a lookout point on top of a steep hill. This view shows a valley of trees from through the window openings on one side, and the view of part of the hilltop from through the back doorway.
The next view is looking out through the back doorway, showing the narrow, flat hilltop, and the trees beyond it.
The third view is from the bottom of the steep hill, with the blue sky showing through the openings of the lookout building.
There is light at the end of the tunnel! You can see through the darkness of the tunnel to the sun shining on a hillside strewn with fall leaves. I love the analogy of this one, especially in relation to my battle with cancer.
The weathered tree in this photo is dead, and actually looks like a piece of driftwood growing out of the ground. But it’s shape reminds me of a sewing machine needle with an “eye” at the top. A close up shot enabled me to capture some of the grass and weeds showing through the eye hole.
This spider was busy repairing his web when I snapped this photo of him through the web as he worked on the underside of it on a foggy morning.
The view through this sunny window has made this photo, taken by my husband, one of our favorites.
