Every time I ponder about how I made these photographs, I go back to the idea of “receiving the image.” This semester I was in Howard Zehr’s Contemplative Photography class, and we worked on the idea that photography has developed a violent characteristic where we use terms such as shoot, take and capture. We go to photo shoots, capture our subjects, and walk out feeling like we took some beacon of beauty or “deeper meaning.”
During this process, I worked on using a camera in order to receive a moment with a father and son rather than place them inside a studio with beautiful lighting and pristine backgrounds. For “Theotokos” I used lighting and the area that was already given to me; working with what was already existing. Instead of directing the people to do something they might not be ready for, I let the people whom I was photographing to take a stance they would like to take and to hold their child comfortably.
Photography by Morgan E. Porter
