The joys of photography

As I told you last week, I’m reading through the book “A Lasting Promise: A Christian Guide to Fighting for Your Marriage” by Scott Stanley, Daniel Trathen, Savanna McCain and Milt Bryan. The book is based on a program from the University of Denver known as Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program (PREP) which has received extensive media coverage in the US. The book’s authors claim that it can be predicted with 80 to 91 percent accuracy which couples will have a good, stable marriage and which couples will end up in divorce.

I’m thoroughly enjoying reading this book. I’m learning about “XYZ” statements, differentiating between issues and events, the Gender Dance, the Speaker-Listener Technique … I have already finished reading the chapter on “Ground Rules on Protecting Your Marriage From Conflict” and I already have a title for my future review of this chapter - “Marriage: The Ultimate Fighting Championship.” (Some of you might know that the UFC is a very popular mixed martial arts competition shown on cable TV.) Once I get through the whole book, I will write a review of what I have learned.

It’s just really too bad that this book is not available locally. Maybe those folks from OMF Literature, PCBS, Christian Literature Crusade or the Church Strengthening Ministry can either import the book from the US or make arrangements to have it reprinted locally. This is one book Filipino couples (whether married or about to be) should read!

Anyway, let’s take a brief respite from discussing articles on the family, relationships and marriage, and focus on the world’s most popular hobby – photography. I have been posting articles on photojournalism in my Campus Connection blog . I started posting these articles in April 2006 and so most of the articles are already in the Archives section. You’ve got to dig the articles up by clicking the links in the Archives section on the right hand column of the blog. I suggest that you begin with the Introduction to Photography article and then work your way up through the articles. Just to whet your appetite, so to speak, below is a part of the Introduction.

World literature tells us the tragic story of Faust who vowed to bargain away his soul if he could find one perfect moment of happiness. He would eternally forfeit his soul if upon finding that one perfect moment of happiness, he would utter the words, “Stay, you are so beautiful.” He couldn’t find that happiness in his relationships, in society, in achievements, but he did find it in a small village by the sea, with the sun setting down, and mothers calling upon their small children to come back to their homes. In the simple joys of these village folks, Faust found his one perfect moment of happiness. At last, he said the words, “Stay, you are so beautiful!” and his soul was eternally forfeited.

Photography has the power to capture not only our perfect moments of love and happiness, but also searing images of cruelty and poverty. It has the power to preserve in a rectangular frame the beauty of a thousand sunsets, the joys of parents seeing their child just learning how to walk on its own, the sublime happiness of students graduating after four years of hard work and sacrifice.

Unlike Faust, however, we do not have to bargain away our souls in order to capture our perfect moments of happiness. We only have to pick up our cameras, look at the world through the viewfinder, and as life passes before our lenses, capture these perfect moments of happiness on film, as we say in our hearts and minds, “Stay, you are so beautiful!”