From a distance

On Sunday afternoon my husband and I went for a drive. As usual, I brought my camera along -- just in case there might be something that caught my eye...

This is a favorite barn of mine; I've shot lots of pictures of it through the years. But this was the first time I'd ever seen it surrounded by cows, so we decided we'd stop by on the way back and get a couple of shots.

By the time we returned, most of the cows had headed off to another nearby barn for dinner, and only a few were left. We quickly grabbed a shot or two, and before long the field around the barn was as empty as I've always seen it before: yet another reminder that if you see something that makes a picture, take the picture right away, as even a brief time elapsed will bring a change.

Because, of course, everything is always changing -- and, in fact, in some ways that can often be the purpose of photography: to capture something ephemeral, either before it changes or as it changes: a wedding, a graduation, a sunset, a canal in Venice -- in each case, something is changing, or is about to change: two become one, school gives way to jobs, light fades to dark, or we will soon be gone; back in the US where Venice will seem like just a beautiful dream.

Professional art photographers sometimes sneer at these sorts of photos, and call them "record shots," just recording a moment in time. But isn't every shot a kind of record shot, the capturing of a moment? Perhaps the sneer comes because the photographer had little hand in creating the moment; they just happened to be there and snap it. But what does the act of creating the moment add? I suppose it is a way of declaring ownership: I am the one who saw the potential here and took the effort to capture it; you weren't here, or even if you had been, you could not have seen what I saw.

But of course that would be true: you and I could both be looking at this barn, and this cow, and seeing completely different things, because how we see is so completely colored by context. Your context and mine will always be different, though the differences may range from huge to subtle. I see this cow and barn and smile, not just because I spent 20 years living in Vermont and driving by scenes like this every day, but because I grew up next to a farm, whose cows would stare through their fence and through the picture window in our dining room, watching us each night as we ate dinner. Yes, the colors and contrasts are nice, but the picture also speaks to me of home, and comfort, and a sense of belonging. For you, this picture might be as remote as a canal in Venice: sweet to look at, perhaps even comforting, but still essentially foreign.

Perhaps the reason we humans find the idea of God so appealing is because we like to imagine a God who can hold -- and understand -- all the different possible contexts together in a single whole, and know them all to be good and valid in a way that we as individuals in a designated time and place cannot. And of course we put that God up in the sky somewhere, because we can't imagine having that broad a perspective when you're right down here in the thick of things. We think God NEEDS to keep a little distance from us, in order not to get sucked in to a particular way of seeing.

It makes me think of that tacky -- but still kind of wonderful -- Bette Midler song, From a Distance:

From a distance the world looks blue and green,
and the snow-capped mountains white.
From a distance the ocean meets the stream,
and the eagle takes to flight.

From a distance, there is harmony,
and it echoes through the land.
It's the voice of hope, it's the voice of peace,
it's the voice of every man.

From a distance we all have enough,
and no one is in need.
And there are no guns, no bombs, and no disease,
no hungry mouths to feed.

From a distance we are instruments
marching in a common band.
Playing songs of hope, playing songs of peace.
They're the songs of every man.
God is watching us. God is watching us.
God is watching us from a distance.

From a distance you look like my friend,
even though we are at war.
From a distance I just cannot comprehend
what all this fighting is for.

From a distance there is harmony,
and it echoes through the land.
And it's the hope of hopes, it's the love of loves,
it's the heart of every man.

It's the hope of hopes, it's the love of loves.
This is the song of every man.
And God is watching us, God is watching us,
God is watching us from a distance.
Oh, God is watching us, God is watching.
God is watching us from a distance.