POWER PICTURES!

My folks instilled a strong work ethic into me as a child and I began mowing lawns in the seventh grade with my brother for the realty company that my mom worked for as the office manager.  As a sophomore in high school, I picked up lawn jobs from the Vice Principle when older folks would call the school looking for a reliable student to attend to their yards.  As a junior and senior, I worked after school and occasionally on weekends at a nearby printing company (a lead that also originated with the Vice Principle!).  Then in-between all that, we had our rock band that helped to bring in some pocket change… it wasn’t like we were booked every weekend… but we did get some bookings!

So, by the time I enrolled in my first photography class in 12^th grade, I had a decent savings account and was able to have purchased a nice 35mm SLR camera through my brother-in-law who was in the Air Force.  When we started learning about the development and printing of black and white film, I did my research and bought a mid-range priced enlarger and all the equipment I would need to process pictures at my own home.

My parents were totally behind my efforts and let me purchase and assemble a metal shed in the backyard.  It was actually a pretty nice set-up as I was able to build a nice wooden foundation and floor for it, complete with electricity and running water… and was totally blacked out from any outside light source… which I had to modify with the addition of a turbine ventilator in order to stop the condensation on the inside walls and equipment!  Ten years later I gave or sold that shed to my father-in-law and bought an even bigger one to serve as a more efficient and roomier darkroom!

So, I was pretty self-sufficient from the start and never had to use any of the student darkrooms at the different schools I attended.  I came to quickly discover that I not only enjoyed working in the darkroom but also became pretty good at it!  I enjoyed all the various projects that I got to work on as I developed my techniques.  I learned the intricate connections between the different film types, the correct lighting conditions, f-stops and film speeds and how they would affect the finished print being processed in the darkroom!

But all that expertise did not happen overnight.  It literally took years of education, lots of practice, many out of focus and incorrectly lit photographs, a ton of patience and probably hundreds of rolls of film, which I began to buy in bulk and load myself!  I can’t even count the number of times that I would come home from my main job and then work late into the night… or early morning hours of the day… printing a roll from a photography job or simply for pleasure!

Developing and printing your own film… at least to me… helped me to take control over the finished product.  It enabled me to imagine the desired result throughout every part of the process, from selecting the right film, snapping the shutter and all the way to taking it out of the fixer tray and turning on the white light to properly view the finished print.

I was reading recently of how my photography training and experience is a lot like the maturing of our individual faith!  The articles that I read talked about the need for us to develop clear and strong “POWER PICTURES” inside of us.  PICTURES of what the Word of God says concerning the situations we find ourselves involved in during our daily lives.  These “POWER PICTURES” of the truth of God’s Word, compared to the worry and anxieties of what the world screams at us, are the EXPECTATIONS from which our faith is enabled to successfully work in our lives.

It is the PICTURE that empowers us to imagine the desired result of our faith from conception to completion!  An old favorite scripture of ours from Hebrews 11:1 reminds us that:

“Faith assures us of things we EXPECT and convinces us of the existence of things we cannot (yet) see.” (God’s Word ©)

Or by using our photography analogy, we could say that “Our ‘POWER PICTURES’ of God’s Word printed on the inside of us, assures us of the things that we are actively EXPECTING (or developing) and convinces us of the things we don’t YET see!”

Proverbs 23:7 also informs us that, For as a man (or a woman) thinks (or PICTURES themselves according to God’s Word) within themself, so are they... (TPT)

So, as per my personal photography life experience goes… it takes lots of education, practice and experience (with some burps along the way!) to fine tune a successful faith walk in your life!  Now… isn’t that something that you want to have firmly established in your daily life? 

If you’re anything like me… then the answer is a CLEAR and RESOLUTE: YES!

…And the good news is that you don’t have to spend the HUNDREDS of dollars that I spent on all my photography equipment to get the “POWER PICTURES” that you need on the inside of you in order to see the desired results of your faith!  (Just lots of practice!)

What a DEAL!  So, what are you waiting for?

Have a wonderful weekend, and as you do… keep EXPECTING God’s best in your life!