This year I have decided to try to stretch myself, go out of my comfort zone and try to learn to shoot in the manual mode. So many had been telling me it allows you to do so much more. I believe it, I just can’t understand it … yet. So, I have been doing a course online and today it was time to give it a go.
It was a beautiful morning; calm, picturesque, a serene sunrise, the harbour was sparkling, and for August it wasn’t even cold. I set myself up and began to try to take a picture with all my new information. Nothing worked, nothing made sense, all I had learned had disappeared and the camera would not do anything I asked it to. Most times it wouldn’t even take a photo at all, and I know it was because I had no idea what I was doing. It was not an enjoyable experience. I even tried to slip back into automatic and try to capture something, but even that didn’t work the same, nothing seemed to work.
I packed up and headed to the car, feeling very sad and frustrated. People saw my camera gear and spoke to me repeatedly as they walked past, saying, “What a beautiful morning, did you get some good shots?” I had no confidant answer for them and as I pondered, I realized I didn’t even see how beautiful it was this morning. I missed the whole sunrise. What would normally have been a lifegiving and joyous experience just left me feeling empty and dejected. I got into my car and just cried. I felt panic and a lack of confidence and I wanted to give up. This was all too hard.
Now I know that my tears were not just about missing the sunrise, or not being able to make my camera work. I know this experience triggered a deeper pain of being completely out of my comfort zone and having to try something completely new, when all I really want to do is to go back to the way it was. It triggered fear, shortness of breath, pain, loss, sadness about my current reality. You know that change, when you are going along in automatic, life is good, life is great and then suddenly, all the rules are changed, and you have no idea how to function in a new mode. For so many the rules are changing daily even, and we are all trying to simply function, and nothing makes sense anymore. You just sit and want to go back to that way it was or give up because it is all too hard.
These past 2 years has been this way for so many people, on so many levels. On a world scale, we are all struggling with the challenge of change and new rules and guidelines being thrust upon us. You name it, it has happened. There is no easy way to navigate what seems to many of us something that we can’t see the end of. And yet like many, for me, COVID has not even been my greatest and most challenging change.
So, I ask myself, why I am doing this to myself right now, changing up one of the few things that has been my lifeline in these difficult times? Should I just go back to ‘auto’ photography and give up learning something new? The easy answer is yes, but in my world right now where so much is out of my control, maybe it is one thing I can change, renew, improve, strengthen. The one place where at least I have the control to choose to give something new and scary a go. A place where my bruised and battered confidence may have a chance to beginning re-sorting itself, preparing me to feel that I can face the bigger challenges of life that will really matter. A little step that will help move me from feeling “paralysed” and “hopeless” to be able to breathe again and step into a new world with renewed “hope”.
Randomly I received a message the night before from someone who doesn’t really know me. I thought it was strange when I read it that night, but as I re-read it this morning I wonder if God knew I would need it this morning:
“God has amazing things in your future, Things you’ve never imagined but to get there you’re going to have defeat some big giants, overcome some big obstacles, outlast some strong opposition. Why this is happening you do not know, but you must stay strong and show the opposition that you’re more determined than they are. God didn’t bring you this far to leave you. The problem is not there to stop you. It’s there to prepare you. This challenge will not defeat you.”
I must believe that if I can push through this difficult, unknown, clueless time of not knowing how to take a photo in manual mode, then in the end a new and exciting world of possibilities can be open to me. Even though I can’t see how this is possible yet, I choose to believe it is. But greater than that I choose to believe this for life, my every day, for my family, for those I walk with and for the world.
You can’t see it yet, your messed up HSC, your lost job, your broken family, your shattered dreams, your wavering health, your lonely and rejected heart, your painful loss that makes no sense … it’s not easy. What is one thing you can do today to simply build hope and life into this day? What is one thing you can do today that is new, stretching, one thing that helps you not give up today? Sometimes it is all I have, and it is enough for today.
Today, I missed the sunrise, I didn’t get the shot, I messed up, fell apart, and cried. But I got up, I got dressed, I drove to the beach, I gave it a go, I acknowledged the pain, and I have chosen to not give up, I am not defeated, and I will try again. And it is still only 8:30am. It is a good day to NOT ‘fail to learn’.
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| The photo I took in desperation in "Auto" mode |
(PS. I wrote this 4 weeks ago and still haven't picked up the camera again,
I have a long way to go yet)
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