The loving eye of the lens
It isn’t easy to explain the fascination of bird photography. Perhaps it is a Neanderthal hunting instinct that lies not far beneath any high-sounding aesthetic theory of the joys of capturing a memorable image? Certainly when you are lying in the mud under a bush, waiting long minutes for a thrush to decide that the worms near your lens are more appetizing that the ones over there by the stream (which when it does come nearby, it will eat for long minutes perversely facing away from the camera) then primeval responses are the ones that more readily bubble to the surface of this particular male mind. But what intrigues me is the extraordinarily and almost mythical permanence of some of the better photos that can result from patience and fieldcraft. The nano-second when a warbler is poised between two particularly lovely hawthorn flowers can last for a hundred years on a print.
Thirty years ago, with much more basic equipment, I spent a happy and muddy hour allowing a pair of Curlew Sandpipers Calidris ferruginea, newly arrived from the Arctic on a Pembrokeshire estuary, to get used to my intrusive presence. After a while they were happy feeding a couple of yards away, a slight breeze brought small ripples from the river around their legs, and at one tiny moment it made a harmonious whole when the rhythm of the fringes of their feathers echoed the river, and all was caught in the autumn light. When I got home to my bathroom turned darkroom, I made a print, and sent it to the owner of the cottage we had borrowed with a note of thanks, and thought no more of it. But we were back in the cottage again last year, and that fleeting moment is still framed on the wall. To my eyes the image catches the heart with a truth about migration and flight, and creation singing as it was made to do.
It made me think about what a loving eye can do. The lens doesn’t love, although the photographer may, but capturing the moment in an image can bring a kind of transformation that goes beyond simply looking. A passion for bird photography, and the amazement that it can express for the astonishing subjects of the lens, can speak of a loving gaze. At certain moments it can even mirror God’s loving gaze on his creation, which certainly bestows an extraordinary significance on the very ordinary, and an eternal quality on the otherwise transient. “Here today and gone tomorrow” said Jesus of the flowers and the grass – “but yet clothed by your heavenly Father.” If even our crude and digital photography confers significance and can create further beauty in a world that is created, how much more does the loving gaze of the Creator who measures the nano-seconds, and who can hear the voice of a singing creation in its constant and flight-filled movement.
Willow Warbler, Phylloscopus trochilus, April 2012, voilà!
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About Peter Harris
Peter and Miranda moved to Portugal in 1983 to establish and run A Rocha’s first field study centre. Together with their four children they lived at the centre for twelve years until 1995 when the work was given over to national leadership. They then moved to establish A Rocha France’s first centre near Arles, and lived there until 2010, providing coordination and giving leadership to the rapidly growing global movement. They are now back in the UK from where they work to support the A Rocha family around the world while being closer to their own, and not least their grandchildren. Their story is told in Under the Bright Wings (1993) and Kingfisher’s Fire (2008).
View all posts by Peter Harris (18)
Hello Peter! Lovely photo and even more lovely words. Thanks for posting, thanks for all you and Miranda have done for and with A Rocha. I will fondly remember our time with you both as I was incredibly blessed by it!
Love and blessings to you!
Susan
Hi Peter,
Wonderful, well written piece and what a lovely shot! You are Uncle John’s follower, indeed! Zenet and I talk about A Rocha and your challenge a lot these days. Both of us recently attended the League of Corporate Foundations CSR Expo (Transforming the Business of Giving Back). I hope that Zenet will represent Christians in Conservation next year with the topic – Integrating Biblical Principles in CSR.
It’s been raining daily and there’s no stop gathering and planting seeds and seedlings.
My warm regards to Miranda and Dan and Melissa.
We hope to meet you all soon.
All we do for His glory,
Lydia
Thanks a lot for getting in touch, Lydia – we think of you, Zenet and others too. I’ll email you wish some news that may interest you now. And yes, all for God’s glory…Peter