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Hattachi, Photo Respiration,
Image by Tokihiro Satō (born 1957),
Black and white transparency over lightbox,
Executed in 1996
© Tokihiro Satō photography |
Jesus said to his disciples:
‘See that you are dressed for action and have your lamps lit. Be like men waiting for their master to return from the wedding feast, ready to open the door as soon as he comes and knocks. Happy those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. I tell you solemnly, he will put on an apron, sit them down at table and wait on them. It may be in the second watch he comes, or in the third, but happy those servants if he finds them ready.’ |
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| Reflection on the Black & White PhotographHow much I love the start of today’s reading: ‘be dressed for action and have your lamps lit’… A proper call to action and for us to go out on our apostolic mission. It reminds me of the tone set by Pope Francis at the start of his pontificate, stressing the point that the Church doesn’t just have a mission, no, the Church itself IS a mission.
God created each of us and has a plan for each of us. In order to execute this plan, He created each one of us with a multitude of different gifts and talents that have an enormous potential. In today’s reading Christ tells us to be ready to use these talents, to go out in the world and put them into work… and thus light our lamps, so in our apostolic mission we can light the world with our missionary zeal and love for God.
For today’s reading, I selected a black and white photograph by Japanese photographer Tokihiro Sato, one of Japan's most accomplished and well respected artists working in the photographic medium. Sato employs long exposures (which means opening the shutter on his camera for up to three hours) while manipulating landscapes with additional light. So in our photograph he would go round the foggy landscape with a light shining directly at the camera at various points during the 3 hours that the shutter of the camera is open. The artist’s body does not appear in the images (it would be underneath the fog), but the light he reflects back at the camera gives a vague hint of his presence. So there is action in the photograph with the artist moving around, and also light reflected in the camera at various points. It is a very poetic and elegant photograph, which shows the presence of the artist is there by the light that is cast at the various points, but yet the artist is nowhere to be seen physically… A bit like God, the Master Artist, who we may not be able to see physically, but yet is present everywhere in His love that surrounds us…
by Patrick van der Vorst |  | |
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