This is a busy weekend. In addition to Mother’s Day on Sunday, we’re celebrating Limerick Day, Train Day, and Odometer Day on Saturday; Frog Jumping Day and International Belly Dance Day on Sunday; and Chicken Dance Day on Monday. 

            On top of all that, May is Photo Month, officially recognized by the U.S. Congress in 1987. For no apparent reason, other than industry lobbying, it seems. 

            Too bad, because photography marks an important shift in human thinking. It enabled us to “fix” – yes, that’s a darkroom pun – a moment in time. 

            The camera itself was not a new invention. As far back as the fourth century BC, the Chinese had discovered the pinhole camera. Light coming through a tiny aperture, into a darkened space, projects a perfect but inverted image. 

            But the image wasn’t permanent, until a French inventor, Nicophore Niepce, developed a chemical process that captured light by darkening a treated surface  in 1827. Additional chemical processes locked that darkening in place. It became the first permanent image. 

            Until then we had three ways of capturing a special moment. 

            We could memorialize it with words or music. But words are always subjective. The speaker, writer, or singer selects some details and ignores others. Listen to the differing eye-witness accounts of an accident, for example. 

            We also used painting and sculpture to remember famous battles and events. Both, however, are subject to the same flaws as memory. Michelangelo deliberately distorted the proportions of the humans in his magnificent statues of the Pieta and of David, to enhance an impression. Constable’s landscapes idealized the English countryside. And Picasso never even pretended to mirror reality. 

            But the photograph takes what’s there – nothing more, nothing less. (Obviously, I’m ignoring Photoshop.)

            In the earliest daguerreotype – a black-and-white image of a street scene – two insignificant men are preserved forever, one of them shining the other’s boots.

Frozen in time

            In effect, photography freezes time. Even the much-maligned selfie asserts, “This is what I looked like,” at a particular time and place that’s now in the past. 

            Most families have boxes of old photos handed down through several generations. Some of the people in those pictures we can still recognize. Others are unidentified, unidentifiable. Should we keep them? Trash them? Why? Or why not?

            Neuroscientist Andy Clark of Edinburgh has been pushing the boundaries of thinking. We don’t think with our minds, he argues – we think with our whole bodies. The guy who does long division with pencil and paper is no less intelligent then the woman who can do it in her mind. Both get the same result. Therefore pencil and paper are part of one’s mind. 

            Media prophet Marshall McLuhan declared, decades ago, that technologies are extensions of human capabilities. The hammer lets the arm hit harder; the wheel enables the foot to travel farther.

            That principle makes photography an extension of our memory. That old class photo confirms that I attended a certain school; it challenges my delusion that I stood out from all the other kids. 

Was it? Or wasn’t it?

            But there’s another way that photography originally challenged conventional wisdom about the world we live in.

            Those first photos were negative images. We don’t recognize what a radical rethinking negative images required -- the idea that there could be an opposite to what everyone saw. Ludicrous! Everyone knows white is white, black is black -- that’s just the way things are!

            But on negatives, white was black, black was white, and everything else was grey.

            Yet there are anomalies. The famed Shroud of Turin, for example. For centuries, it was believed to be the cloth in which Jesus was wrapped, when he was laid in his tomb. The mysterious markings on it were supposedly seared into the linen fabric by the explosive energy of his resurrection.

            Except that the markings didn’t look like anyone. 

            The advent of photography solved that problem. The image was a negative. Converted to a positive, the Shroud’s markings clearly showed the face of a bearded man. 

            And created a new problem. Radiocarbon dating places the cloth around 1300. There’s no record of the Shroud existing before 1390.

            So if a cloth actually captured an image of Christ, 20 centuries ago, it’s a miracle.

            If an image of Christ appeared on the cloth 13 centuries after his death, it’s a miracle.

            But even if the image on the cloth isn’t Christ, someone created a negative image five centuries before Niepce invented the first photographic negative. Which would still make it miraculous. 

            Resolve that one, photography! 

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Copyright © 2017 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups encouraged; links from other blogs welcomed; all other rights reserved.

            To send comments, to subscribe, or to unsubscribe, write jimt@quixotic.ca

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YOUR TURN

It would seem that you agreed with me, in last week’s column, that much of the current problem with flooding both in BC and in New Brunswick is attributable to human stupidity. Or cheapness. Some of your comments were short.

            Frank Martens: “Well said!”

            Phyllis Giroux: “Good piece!”

Cliff Boldt wrote about his community of Courtenay on Vancouver Island: “I wrote my local government five years ago about the condition of the ditches in my community.  They haven’t been maintained in years.  When we get a heavy rain and snow melt, there will be floods.  On the TV news, one flooded-out resident in New Brunswick made the point I am making now.  Lack of maintenance which could be considered prevention.  Same applies to wildfires in our forests.  Pay now or pay later.”

Bob Rollwagen reflected on human short-sightedness: “I live and work in many communities. Amazingly, people all do things in a similar way. They ignore the rules and apologize when caught. It is easier to say sorry than it is to ask permission. 

            “We even ask and expect more services, at the same time as we expect to pay less to support them. Big cars are back and the big auto makers are reducing the smaller, most efficient models. Homes get bigger, covering 60+% of a lot. It was about 30% when I was a kid. If you build by a river, why do I have fund your repairs? And if you refuse to evacuate when it is easy and safe, why do I pay for your rescue when you are stuck? 

            “Climate change is about attitude. Some have really changed their attitude, but most have just done enough to make it look like they have changed. It is easy to verify this -- just look through your neighbour’s blue bin. If you find ten items that we all know should not be there, it means you are paying to fix it at the sorting plant. Why do we assume loggers, oil drillers, and pipeline builders can’t act in a similar fashion?

            “Leadership starts at home.”

Judy Fili: “I think you are right on, and not only in your part of the world. This is happening worldwide in varying degrees and we humans are, in my opinion, definitely the cause. We are slowly but surely destroying our planet and its creatures. Each of us has the responsibility to be a good steward of the world God gave us to live in and I don't believe that, as a species, we are living up to that obligation.”

In one sentence, I suggested that our society hates trees. Laurna Tallman  disagreed: “Some people do appreciate and revere trees.  I have written poetry about trees. They populate the paintings I made when I had time for art. The love of trees of one of our children led him and his wife to name their children after trees. 

            “I think God cares about trees the way God numbers the hairs of our head as a measure of compassionate knowledge. Many people I know care deeply about particular trees and hold deep respect for them.

            “And I know some people of the Far North were terrified of trees when they came to live in the South, i.e., in Ontario. They were afraid the trees would fall on them. [Indeed] some did fall on people in the wild windstorm that passed through here three days ago leaving hundreds of thousands of people without electrical power.”

The problem is lack of co-ordination, Taryn Skalbania suggested: “Everyone has connected the dots (the feds, the ministries, local municipalities, Regional Districts and First Nations) yet industry and government ignore the facts and continue to log this valley like there is no tomorrow. They have actually stepped up allowable cuts for the Shuswap region; they too will be in dire trouble soon. 

            “We cannot change extreme weather, rainfall nor snow pack. We can keep humans out of the forest in summer to control some of the wildfires. But we can control logging. Yet no one is talking about it, no one except you, so thanks.”

Tom Watson said the same: “If you want to connect some dots, follow the money. When it's [a choice between] money or the environment, the environment loses every time.”

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TECHNICAL STUFF

If you want to comment on something, write me at jimt@quixotic.ca. Or just hit the ‘Reply’ button.

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            My webpage is running again -- thanks to Wayne Irwin and ChurchWeb Canada. You can now access current columns and five years of archives at http://quixotic.ca

            I write a second column each Wednesday, called Soft Edges, which deals somewhat more gently with issues of life and faith. To sign up for Soft Edges, write to me directly at the address above, or send a blank e-mail to softedges-subscribe@lists.quixotic.ca

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PROMOTION STUFF…

To use the links in this section, you’ll have to insert the necessary symbols.

            Ralph Milton ’s latest project is called “Sing Hallelujah” -- the world’s first video hymnal. It consists of 100 popular hymns, both new and old, on five DVDs that can be played using a standard DVD player and TV screen, for use in congregations who lack skilled musicians to play piano or organ. More details at wwwDOTsinghallelujahDOTca

            Ralph’s HymnSight webpage is still up, http://wwwDOThymnsightDOTca, with a vast gallery of photos you can use to enhance the appearance of the visual images you project for liturgical use (prayers, responses, hymn verses, etc.)

            Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. <http://wwwDOTchurchwebcanadaDOTca>

            I recommend Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, wwwDOTtraditionaliconoclastDOTcom

            Alva Wood’s satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town -- not particularly religious, but fun; alvawoodATgmailDOTcom to get onto her mailing list.

            Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at tomwatsoATgmailDOTcom or twatsonATsentexDOTnet