When things go wrong, people often ask “Why?” and seldom get answers. Some resort to finger pointing, skirting issues or putting the blame on something else. At the end of it, people eventually realize that God won’t part the clouds and stick out His heavenly head and tell us all about what we’re going through. He just doesn’t do stuff like that anymore. It seems like we’re at a time wherein we have to show our faith more and figure things out for ourselves not with the mind primarily but through our faith in Him and our faith in each other. True, there are so many times when things just don’t make sense at all and there are so many people who seem to make it all worthless. But things go on and so do we.

It is true that people in Manila should be thankful that only one storm hit, though it was a humdinger of a storm, but it’s still disturbing that so many people seem to forget that there were others, both in this country and its neighbors, that did get hit. Perhaps one of the lessons to be learned here, aside from minimizing the use of plastic, reusing the stuff and disposing of it properly, is greater sensitivity. Some say that it’s just the Filipino’s way of coping with things to make fun of everything. Maybe but people are people regardless of who they are and where they live and what language they speak. So when we pray that something like a typhoon or storm doesn’t hit us, part of the prayer should always be that it also spares others that we don’t know and will most likely never meet. Is it okay that a storm hits and ravages Taiwan, Japan, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia or Thailand as long as it doesn’t hit us? No.

It always bothered me as a boy when I first read that, “You are your brother’s keeper.” Later on, you realize that it’s true for everybody, even those who’ve wronged you and those who have hurt you. In the final analysis, this is partly what Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta meant when she said we should find Christ in the “distressing disguise of the poor.” We’re all poor in our own way, she always said and now, it is realizing each other’s poverty that we help each other. Those who didn’t get hit or suffered little? Maybe they can benefit from seeing just how really closely knit families work together to rebuild their lives and how so many people hang on to what’s really important in their lives so that they can go on.

It is in times like these when we can be active participants in God’s plan. Remember this exasperating story of a man finding an injured bird and his blaming God for allowing such things to happen and asking why He hasn’t done anything to address the situation? The supposed answer God gave in His defense was more of a challenge: “I did do something. I made you.” A time like that which we have found ourselves in now is just our chance to be God’s hand, an imperfect hand, definitely but it is what we are.

The photographer’s hand

A photographer has a very unique gift. There was a time when people with SLRs were seemingly unique and there were so few of us. In 1986, during the Presidential snap elections, I was one of the few people who had one slung around my neck. My father even got mad telling me people would mistake me for a newspaper guy and may just hurt me. Bless him. I didn’t know how bad the situation was in the country then until I heard that Evelio Javier was murdered in Antique in the most barbaric way. The power of the photograph was shown there though. One of my most concrete memories of that time was Evelio’s dead body in a toilet cubicle with a rosary in his bloodied hand. That was more than 23 years ago and I still remember.

With cameras so much more accessible now, whether it be film or digital, events shouldn’t be missed. There just doesn’t seem to be an excuse anymore. Your camera doesn’t even need to be digital. It would be such a shame if you are faced with a scene and you don’t have something to record it.

Try to experiment though. Often, the impulse is to shoot wide and get as much of the scene in as possible. That is good especially for a photojournalistic approach and many photojournalists actually have a wide angle zoom on their cameras all the time. Those same photojournalists may also have a second camera, however, with a telephoto zoom to isolate the details. Watch out for how the light hits. Dramatic lighting comes often as the sun rises and when it sets. Shooting with the sun high above results in flat lighting and not-so-dramatic photos. A bit of side lighting especially that which gives you a halo effect may be good. (The halo effect happens when you have a light source a bit above, behind and to the side of the subject. You get this nice light fringing your subject. With people, the effect is heightened by the hair.) You needn’t even just shoot people. There are other things to focus on to give a better picture of what’s happening.

If you remember Jeff Hutchens whom we featured here once, he said that he’d try to get the mood of things and therefore would focus on little details sometimes to the point that you wouldn’t be able to tell just where and when the shot was done.

Photography is a calling for some. If you are one of those called, not necessarily to make this your profession, do pick up your camera, whatever it is, and shoot.