Finding the Extraordinary

Mystical Mass
Amanda and Cory Fierro's Wedding
Keller, TX

When working behind the camera viewfinder, you enjoy a world of a 3x2 format. Everything is neatly framed from one corner to the next. What we capture can range from mundane to extraordinary. Truthfully in the digital age a greater number of captures fall in the "so what" category.

Shooting an event doesn't necessarily lend itself to the same skills required by fine art photography. Yet for me, finding that one image that could become something else makes the pursuit worthwhile. It provides me with a positive incentive.

After pouring over nearly two thousand frames from a recent wedding, I found one image that caught my attention. Not only did the image tell its own story but possessed a shroud of mystery.

As I processed the image, I worked towards enhancing the details captured by that moment. The priest's raised hands over the scriptures and sacrament were enhanced by the backlit altar and chalice. The scene of the Holy Eucharist came to life. The scene was made complete by the glow surrounding the Eucharist. It was as if the camera actually caught the aura of a sacred moment. It may very well have or so I would like to believe.

Faith and hope are intangible things. While despair brings us down and perhaps to our knees, faith and hope raise us up to our feet and spring us into action. Not one mother or father wants their child to have it worse than them. We live with the hope that it will be better someday, somehow, and somewhere. We have a choice: we can either be lifted up by hope or we can allow ourselves to live in despair. Both are equally real, but one motivates while the other drains us of our energy.