Selfie

Mercy there was great
And grace was free…

I love the photography of Olivia Bee. She’s the 19-year-old prodigy from the Pacific Northwest who shot a Converse ad at the age of 15.

Bee’s work is so different than mine. I always want to capture the truth in pictures. I never want people or places or things to look better or worse than they are in reality. The challenge for me in photography is to capture everything and everyone as God might see them: the true self, loved and adored despite the chains of humanity that bind us all. This is me calling forth veneration. Let the supernatural from each human soul pour out. I isolate it and preserve it frame by frame. In the end, I hope to deliver mercy and understanding to my subjects. 

I took most of my leads in photography from the Pioneer Woman. She taught me to focus in tight with lots of depth of field. But, Olivia Bee doesn’t shoot like that. Her pictures are grainy. Some are out of focus. She is a genius at composition. She puts on. I didn’t know that was allowed.

I have a knack for composition, too, but I have never put that energy or time into my photography. I never wanted anything to ever seem composed. I never wanted to appear to be practicing too hard. I never wanted someone to look at my pictures and say, “I wish life could be like that,” knowing full well it was just a fantasy.

Instead, I wanted people to look at my pictures and say, “Next time I will look closer so I can see that, too.”