I watched the documentary WarPhotographer tonight. The movie is about freelance photographer James Nachtwey who is one of the preeminent documentary photographers on the planet. It’s the second time I’ve watched it and it always makes me want to be a better photographer. To take photos that matter. To do something with my life that ‘matters’.

What I wonder about though is why. Why do I–why do we–have this compulsion to do something that ‘matters’? Why am I not content to take photos of trees and mountains? Why am I not content to work a desk job? Why do I want to feel like I’m living my life working toward a goal or a higher purpose that is outside of myself?

I think it is easy to confuse this notion with calling. I’m not talking about what work I feel called to do–I think calling is pretty specific–a specific career or geographic calling. I have no idea what I’m called to do. But I know I want to, no, need to do something that matters.

When I started writing this post I wanted to bring it around to some happy little platitude. Some little theological nugget about God and Jesus. Some answer I can give that makes sense of this little part of what it means to live. The best I can do this a cliche from Nachtwey himself, ‘If we don’t, who will?’

Click here to view the embedded video.

Coming from a Calvinist Reformed background, I more or less accepted Pre-destination by default. Except for a brief flirt with free-will in college, I’ve come to agree that at least in a general sense, God has called each of us to a specific profession, geographic location, etc. I don’t think God really cares what kind of cereal we have in the morning, but there is no doubt in my mind that He has a plan for us. Sadly, I think the church has used this as a reality check on youthful exuberance and idealism. “So rare and unlikely is it that anyone will actually change the world that God certainly wouldn’t call you to that. It’s far more likely God has called you to be an insurance agent or retail manager.” And so we end up with lots of disgruntled office workers reading lots of self-help books about restoring purpose to their lives.

I believe God has indeed called all to be great and some to even change the world. Maybe God has called you to be a claims adjuster. Not the most exciting work, I know. But maybe He has called you to that role to be a source of compassion to people who have just lost everything in a house fire. If He has called you to be a camp registrar maybe it is so you can be a source of hope and grace to families struggling to stay together. But at the same time, so often we encourage musicians and writers and artists and dreamers to get “real jobs” rather than create something beautiful. As if God is more glorified in an 8-5 existence than an unpublished manuscript or an overlooked song posted to YouTube.

As I have started telling people that my passion in life is to be a story teller I seem to get one of two responses. I either hear something like, “Oh cool!” Or something like, “Hmm, so what are you actually going to do?” Maybe the latter response is born of experience and pragmatism and the former idealism and NPR, but so what? Maybe God hasn’t called EVERYONE to change the world, but if a few more people try would we be that worse off for the lack of a few more accountants or lawyers? Take a chance, indulge God a little. Who knows, you might even change the world if even just a little bit.

I’ve written before about what I want to do with photography in the future and why photography is such a powerful medium. I’ve posted videos from the TED Conference featuring James Nachtwey, my photography hero, speaking about what photography means to him. I haven’t written much about why I pick up the camera when I go out. What keeps me hitting the shutter release frame after frame. I have now taken 6662 shots with my 30D. I have shot on three different continents and taken photos of everything from black and white still life’s of my bathroom to orphan children playing soccer in Uganda. And I am still amazed at what happens when I plug the CF card into my card reader. Seeing images that I saw with my eyes, places and people, moments lost to time, replicated on screen as a computer’s interpreting of the 0′s and 1′s from the light sensor in the camera, it amazes me. They are windows into things I can never experience again.

The night before leaving for Uganda I wrote in my journal, “In just over 24 hours I’m going to get on a plane and it is going to change my life forever. …I think that this is going to be a very important moment in my life that I will look back on one day and say that is when things changed. What that change might be, I don’t know. I believe that God has time and again made it abundantly clear that I’m supposed to go and see and take pictures. I would hope this trip makes me less cynical and more galvanized for change.” That was just barely less than a year ago.

It is very popular on Flickr to do a “365″ series consisting of a photo of yourself everyday for one year. I have a lot of respect for people who are able to do it and some of them end up with amazing work. I don’t think I could do it though. That’s not the kind of photography that excites me. I don’t feel driven to take photos because of the “bokeh” of my new lens or the cool way I can light a scene with my iPhone and an alarm clock. All that stuff is cool and fun to play around with, but it’s not what I do.

Volume-wise, the vast majority of the photos I take are of bands performing at the Abbey Coffee and Music Lounge here in Santa Cruz. I enjoy it and I’ve taken good pictures there. But my best work, the work I think was most rewarding and has the most meaning is the photos I brought back from Africa. I believe that great art, truly monumental works that have lasting cultural impact, has a cost. I have a lot to learn and a lot of photos to take in my future so I have no delusions of greatness with anything I have done up to this point. But when I look at the photos I have from Uganda and compare them to those photos I have from the Abbey, it’s not even close. I shoot at Vintage and the Abbey because I can and it is a great service to the church. But the photography I am most passionate about, the work that gets me most fired up and wanting to share with others is stuff like I got from Uganda. Those are photos God borrowed my camera for. I partly went to Uganda because I wanted go on an exotic adventure and I wanted people to look at my photos and be jealous of my experience. But the photos I brought back were not about me. Not about my skilled manipulation of ISO’s and f-stops. The photos I brought back show a world that is completely alien to us in America. A world where war, famine, and disease are a reality and yet hope lives on.

I get upset sometimes when my flickr sets don’t get the views I think they deserve or when I see a “pro” doing work I could do better. I get upset that people haven’t “discovered” me and aren’t showering me with comments and page views. But then I remember why I’m really doing this. God did not gift me as a photographer so that I could be famous. God gifted me so that I could tell stories. So that I could help confront injustice and suffering, pain and ignorance. So that maybe someday a kid sees one of my photos and is moved to do something for AIDs orphans or the homeless or maybe even just the lonely. I don’t want people to see my photos and think, “that’s great lighting.” I want them to see my photos and say, “what am I doing to make a difference,” or “it really is beautiful when the Body of Christ worships the Creator.”

As I look toward a future of international relief work and continuing with my photography to that end, I can’t help but think if I try to do it for my own glory I won’t be able to last. I know stories of photojournalists who have worked in war zones or the third world and end up killing themselves because they can’t cope with the reality of people living in those conditions. When I remember I am not taking these photos for my self, but because there is a story that needs to be told and seen, that is what will keep me going. That’s why I shoot. Why I strive to be the best I can be, to be a good steward of this gift I have been given. No one has ever changed the world with a new bigger TV or a new faster car, but photographers who believe in the importance of telling the truth, of being true to the world they see through their lens and the people who live in it, they have.

“As children we assume that greatness is within our grasp. Whatever inspires us, we begin to dream that one day we will be the best. It is only as we lose our childlike innocence that we begin to settle for far less. A part of growing up seems to be acquiescing to mediocrity. It’s easy to say that we’re just becoming realistic, that it’s just a part of growing up. But, in fact, it’s the death of our souls. When we stop dreaming, we start dying. For some of us, this has been a slow, painful death.” – Erwin McManus “Soul Cravings”

When I was a little kid, I looked forward to the day when I would get to play baseball in high school and college, maybe even play pro-ball one day. My parents tell stories of me rounding the bases in our front yard pumping my fist a la Kirk Gibson celebrating my own game winning home run. When I was in middle school it was computer programming. I was just discovering all the cool things you could do with computers. I even wrote a program in BASIC which you could pretend to have a conversation with. Then in high school and college it was hanging on every word of Josh Lyman and Kate Harper on the West Wing, knowing for sure one day I would get to be “the guy the President turns to when he doesn’t know what to do.”

But then I realized I just wasn’t fast around the bases. In fact, I was slow on a level approaching epic. While I’m a big guy, I’ve never really had a power swing either, I’ve been more of a high average singles and doubles hitter. That dream limped on for a while longer through church softball and pickup games but I’ve pretty much resigned to living vicariously through my fantasy team today.

And then I realized that I really don’t enjoy math, and computer programing requires a lot of math classes. They aren’t the algebra variety either. Maybe if I had a really great math teacher who got me excited about integers and tangents I’d have turned out a little different but I decided I’d rather let other people do the programming while I just tinker around with the hardware.

Finally came the realization in college that I’m not aggressive enough for politics.  Sure I want to be in the situation room as world changing decisions are made, but I don’t want to do the ass kissing and hatchet work it takes to get there. I want to spend my life focused on making the world a better place, not focusing on the next election or congressional vote. If I moved to DC the city would swallow me up in a second. There is so much more to life than polling numbers. If some day I was given the right opportunity to become involved in a campaign or political office, I’d probably jump at the chance. But to move up from the ground level just isn’t who I am. I don’t want it enough.

I look back on my (relatively short) life sometimes and kick myself for decisions I made that basically changed the course of my future in just a few seconds. I remember being invited by the baseball coach to try out for the high school team.  I told him I’d be no good and walked away. I think about the homework assignments I didn’t put full effort into or the classes I skipped to watch a movie with a friend and wonder if I couldn’t have graduated from SPU with honors. I think about stupid things I’ve said to girls I liked that ensured a friendship at the cost of a relationship. I even wonder sometimes if the seizures I had in high school didn’t change the wiring in my brain somehow, closing off neural pathways or altering my personality.

If you had asked me even five years ago what I would be doing today it wouldn’t have been working in Christian camping. This is not so say that I feel God brought me to Santa Cruz for no reason (in fact, my brief 1 1/2+ year down here has changed me for the better in ways I never would have though). But I was supposed to be working at a web 2.0 company or the State Department or in grad school writing a masterful thesis. I’m not supposed to be a confused, frustrated, cynical 20-something. My interest in history gives me this ominous shadow of time hanging over my shoulder. People may be living longer, but I feel sometimes like I’m wasting important years of my life. To go back to the quote above, I see greatness slipping away with the passing of time and it leaves me feeling a little more panicked with each passing day. Panicked that I missed God’s calling to whatever I’m really supposed to be doing, missed that class or that conversation, or job fair interview where I was going to get my “dream job.” Terrified that I’m going to wake up and realize I’m 35 and working a job I have absolutely no passion for, just doing it because I’m still waiting for God to show me what’s “next.”

So what is next then. Well, my current passion and dream job is photojournalism. I’ve still got a lot to learn, and it is a very competitive field, but I look at my work at Vintage and compare it to “professional” work and I’m not half bad (in fact, if I might boast a little, I’m pretty good). Traveling to Uganda and documenting the trip was an amazing experience. While it has put a pretty big dent in my youthful finances, it was worth every penny for the photos and stories I was able to bring back. One of these days I will finish the book I’m working on to self publish with photos from the trip. Then next fall I’m going to sit down with a friend and put together a professional portfolio of work to market myself. Looking at photos that tell a story is so inspiring to me that I want to go shoot more myself.

“Your soul longs to become, and you can try to ignore it, but soon you will find yourself hating your life and despising everyone who refuses to give up on his or her dreams.” -McManus

I don’t know what the future holds, I don’t have a crystal ball or hot line to Heaven, but for a little while longer at least I’m going to keep dreaming.

You may notice that my blog now has a new name.  Partly because of my sudden discovery that I owe the IRS $600 and partly because I have been thinking of doing it for a while anyway I’ve been looking at incorporating myself as a photography business.  Rather than do the straight up name thing most photographers do I’ve been kicking around some different names in my head.  Relevant Images was one of the first ones I thought of but there are already quite a few people out there with that name or similar ones to it.  Resonant Images however seems to be pretty available.  So I decided to rename the blog and see if I still like it after a week or two.  I’ve never been totally happy with the title “Through the Looking Glass” since it’s not terribly original and makes me sound like some kind of literary snob.  In truth, I’m much more of a theology snob.

I settled on Resonant Images because I like the idea of doing photography that has an impact on people.  I want it to “resonate” with them and force them to think about the subject matter.  I re-watched most of  WarPhotographer last night and it once again made me feel like I should be doing something more with my life and my photography.  I really do feel increasingly convicted that God has given me a gift and a tool in photography to inform and teach others about events that are taking place in the world.  Hopefully this is something that is in my future as a career option and not just as a hobby.  For now though, I’ll just stick with trying to pick out a good name.