I joined Kinship several months ago after reading about it in Kim Manley Ort’s newsletter. In January, I joined a practice circle, Making Kin through Photography, a course that highlighted contemplative photography practices. I was familiar with the concept through Kim’s newsletters and courses and the practices from Christine Valter Paintner’s book Eyes of the Heart, which combines Christian contemplative practices with photography.

I am so thankful I joined. I’ve been part of other photography groups, but I have not found a more supportive group of photographers than I found in the Making Kin practice circle. No one judged my images. (If they did, they kept quiet!) Seriously, nearly everyone found something in the images that connected with them.

I don’t always have a lot of faith in myself. I take criticism too personally at times. When I was an impressionable third grader, an artist pretty much told me that I could never be an artist myself. I made do with one dimensional houses and lollipop trees and stick figure humans. No one encouraged me to try to learn how to draw and make “art.” I was a musician, and I was GOOD, so good that I played Chopin’s “Military Polonaise” as my talent for the local Junior Miss competition and my junior recital. A classmate’s father told her that I sounded “professional.” I was elated. At last, I was good at something!

And then I found photography. Shortly after I got married, my husband and I bought a fancy Canon AE1 Program SLR camera. I was hooked. I could burn five or six rolls of 24-frame film in a weekend in the mountains! That camera was my “baby”—until I had babies! Another friend told me I had a good eye for composition, and I even received an honorable mention in a photography contest sponsored by the SC State Parks service.

But that changed a few months ago, I was told I worked too hard to make unphotogenic pictures into good ones. Yes, the image was not well composed. It was “busy” in that there were lots of leaves and branches and “stuff” in the frame. However, the commentor missed the point of the image: I was trying to capture the LIGHT! You see, the sun was in the Western sky at the right angle to shine through the petals of the sasanqua flower. It made an opaque thing transparent. I was mesmerized by that light! Instead, I was told that the image was “unphotogenic.” I stopped sharing in that group. Another group I belong to is so large that I get lost in it.

So, when I joined the Making Kin practice circle, I was reluctant to share, but I put my Brave on, and shared each week but one (because I couldn’t attend; I was having a medical procedure during our time for the the Zoom call). I’ve even shared the technically and compositionally bad photos, and the people in the group got what I was trying to say.

And all this is to say: I am so thankful for this group of men and women who “get” the concept of contemplative photography. Contemplative photographic practices are not about technique or correctness; they are about connecting with the subject that appears in the frame. They are about accepting what is in front of the lens without judgment of what is photogenic or not. Combined with Christian contemplative practices, the act of receiving images is a kind of prayer as well that allows worship and praise.

I will be watching the Kinship site for additional contemplative photography practice circles. I am thankful for that community.