On Cropping Pictures

I’m a believer in cropping photographs. I don’t do much photo management: I take pictures by ambient light, flash disabled; I use a small 20 megapixel handheld digital camera; I process little. It’s my method of street photography. But I do crop. As you see, cropping changes the image from broad to intimate. The cropped version of ‘Cantor’ stresses the blue of Diana’s dress and the halo of candles surrounding Rachel, the warmth between the two women. It talks about colour. The full shot is about place, and what happens there. Rachel sings in a church that echoes the history of the colony: the city of Melbourne was proclaimed from its steps in 1848. The picture considers spaced-out churches where the aged, the disabled, the sick and the homeless — the same who came to hear Jesus — still come to hear his liturgy. It also speaks of committed musicians giving their hearts from the choir loft: here present what Britten called ‘the holy triangle’ of composer, performer, and listener. A picture about sound. Where is your field of attention? Is it close, detailed, intimate, appreciative? Or is it broad, detached, gathering experience of place and time? Which do you prefer? It was hard to decide.

On Sermons

Children’s author William Mayne wrote four books about the choir school of Canterbury Cathedral where he had been a pupil. In these stories choirboys could be called out for devising games to be played during the sermon. Somewhat like the joke now going around that choristers should wait for the sermon to check their mobile phones.

            Why sermons? What does a sermon do? Clearly it teaches; it has a purpose to educate often through elucidating the Scriptures. This is why you don’t interrupt a sermon. They don’t seem to be interactive. In some churches asking questions after the sermon is encouraged, but that would be disrespectful during the sermon itself. A Baptist friend told me a sermon doesn’t come from the pastor but it comes from God through the Scriptures. ‘It’s loving and it’s free,’ she said. So you listen. Every proper church service needs a sermon, or at least a homily.

            I like Dominican spirituality. ‘Praise, bless, preach.’ And what is preached is veritas: the truth. The truth is contained in the Gospel, or, rather, the Truth is Jesus Christ. Preaching this is a responsibility and an honour. Listening is a privilege and a blessing. Study, preach, listen, be present. Now.