Still learning
28/09/15 05:15
I awoke this morning to the sound of rain outside my window. My first thought was a twinge of sadness, because I had the kayak loaded up and was ready to go paddling. I don’t mind paddling in the rain, but I stay off of the lakes when there is lightning in the area and I could hear the distant rumble of thunder as I lay in bed for a few minutes, clearing my head. It wasn't the loud crack of nearby lightning, but rather the low rumbling of thunder echoing off of the distant hills. A quick look at the weather radar indicates that I’ll probably be able to go paddling. There isn’t a lot of moisture in the area. The forecast calls for less than .1 inch of rain in the next six hours. We might get more over the next 24, but the total will probably be less than a half inch. I’m pretty sure I can paddle in a little while.
Our hills need the rain. It isn’t right to complain about the rain. I could almost feel the relief of the dry grass in the lawn as the water fell on its surface. It was a gentle rain - just the right sound for waking up in the morning.
The clouds have been dancing around our area for a couple of days. After a clear night on Saturday with which to view the supermoon, we couldn’t see the moon at all at moonrise last night. We got a break about an hour later, when it was about 1/4 to 1/3 eclipsed. I took a few pictures, but knew that I was going to miss the spectacular full eclipse and the red color that the moon shows in such circumstances.
Somehow, sitting on the deck last night, peering at the moon through the camera, I remembered a couple of teachers from long ago. In my second year of seminary I had the opportunity to take a class in photography that was co-taught by one of my favorite teachers and Archie Lieberman the then-famous Life magazine photographer. The two had become friends and every couple of years taught a class that was part theology, part photography, and a whole lot of learning to see other people and the world in which we live.
Archie wasn’t impressed by fancy cameras. He had quality equipment and did most of his work with F-series Nikons that were the most common cameras of professional photojournalists at that time. “A camera is only a tool - just a box with a hole and a shutter,” he would say. “It takes a human mind with powers of observation to make a photograph. Archie had patience for the image to come. One of his books, Farm Boy, contains images from following the same farm family for 25 years. After that book, he continued to follow and photograph that family until the end of his life. When we would go on photo trips, Archie could have remarkable patience for a single frame. He would envision the scene, scope it out through the viewfinder, and think about a dozen details: background, light angle, focus, depth of field, framing, and choice of lens. We didn’t have zoom lenses in those days. We chose a focal length and sometimes spent the entire day with a single lens. At most we had four lenses in our camera bags, and most seminary students had fewer. 50mm was the most typical lens. I was fortunate to have a good Nikkor 105mm lenses that was great for portraits and reasonable for animals.
These days we have zoom lenses with incredible ranges. I often use a single lens for a whole day’s photography. A couple of lenses are all I need for almost every situation. I don’t find myself changing lenses very often.
What I was thinking last night, however, was about how long it has taken me to develop patience. Waiting for the clouds to part, I squeezed of a dozen frames last night in order to get two photographs that might be usable. When I was taking photography, there is no way that I could have spent that much time and taken that few frames. I had a capacity to burn through a lot of film. Now that I work exclusively with digital cameras, I actually find myself taking fewer photographs. The number of photos worth keeping seems to be fairly constant. Perhaps I am learning to see my pictures before I press the shutter button. It is a skill that Archie definitely had and one that is hard to teach to twenty-somethings, which is what I was in those days.
The other teacher, Ross, was in his mid-seventies when I met him - at least a decade older than I am today. It is important for me to remember him well if for no other reason than that I don’t have a lot of models about life and work for this stage in my life. Most of my teachers and mentors were focused on retirement at this point. Ross served full time as a graduate school educator until his late seventies. When, at 74, the time came for him to leave our school, he sought and obtained a position at another graduate theological seminary and continued to teach for several years.
If Archie struggled to teach me patience, Ross struggled to teach me persistence. Both of the lessons took several decades to be processed. Good teachers do that. They make an impact that continues to teach as the student continues to learn. Ross an Archie both had the ability to plant seeds that take decades to come into fruition.
Teaching may be like the rain. It isn’t how much rain falls in a minute that makes the difference, but rather how much falls in a year. The trees are willing to wait for the rain. Sometimes they have to wait for months. But every drop matters to the trees. They do their best to develop strong roots that take advantage of all the moisture the soil can hold. The best teachers don’t try to deliver all of the information all at once, but rather offer the information that can be used along with information that can be treasured and pondered until its time.
How fortunate I have been to have had such marvelous teachers.
Our hills need the rain. It isn’t right to complain about the rain. I could almost feel the relief of the dry grass in the lawn as the water fell on its surface. It was a gentle rain - just the right sound for waking up in the morning.
Somehow, sitting on the deck last night, peering at the moon through the camera, I remembered a couple of teachers from long ago. In my second year of seminary I had the opportunity to take a class in photography that was co-taught by one of my favorite teachers and Archie Lieberman the then-famous Life magazine photographer. The two had become friends and every couple of years taught a class that was part theology, part photography, and a whole lot of learning to see other people and the world in which we live.
Archie wasn’t impressed by fancy cameras. He had quality equipment and did most of his work with F-series Nikons that were the most common cameras of professional photojournalists at that time. “A camera is only a tool - just a box with a hole and a shutter,” he would say. “It takes a human mind with powers of observation to make a photograph. Archie had patience for the image to come. One of his books, Farm Boy, contains images from following the same farm family for 25 years. After that book, he continued to follow and photograph that family until the end of his life. When we would go on photo trips, Archie could have remarkable patience for a single frame. He would envision the scene, scope it out through the viewfinder, and think about a dozen details: background, light angle, focus, depth of field, framing, and choice of lens. We didn’t have zoom lenses in those days. We chose a focal length and sometimes spent the entire day with a single lens. At most we had four lenses in our camera bags, and most seminary students had fewer. 50mm was the most typical lens. I was fortunate to have a good Nikkor 105mm lenses that was great for portraits and reasonable for animals.
These days we have zoom lenses with incredible ranges. I often use a single lens for a whole day’s photography. A couple of lenses are all I need for almost every situation. I don’t find myself changing lenses very often.
The other teacher, Ross, was in his mid-seventies when I met him - at least a decade older than I am today. It is important for me to remember him well if for no other reason than that I don’t have a lot of models about life and work for this stage in my life. Most of my teachers and mentors were focused on retirement at this point. Ross served full time as a graduate school educator until his late seventies. When, at 74, the time came for him to leave our school, he sought and obtained a position at another graduate theological seminary and continued to teach for several years.
If Archie struggled to teach me patience, Ross struggled to teach me persistence. Both of the lessons took several decades to be processed. Good teachers do that. They make an impact that continues to teach as the student continues to learn. Ross an Archie both had the ability to plant seeds that take decades to come into fruition.
Teaching may be like the rain. It isn’t how much rain falls in a minute that makes the difference, but rather how much falls in a year. The trees are willing to wait for the rain. Sometimes they have to wait for months. But every drop matters to the trees. They do their best to develop strong roots that take advantage of all the moisture the soil can hold. The best teachers don’t try to deliver all of the information all at once, but rather offer the information that can be used along with information that can be treasured and pondered until its time.
How fortunate I have been to have had such marvelous teachers.