Greenflame

Jottings on science, religion, technology, pop culture, photography and faith from the Aotearoa New Zealand

Category: Photography

  • Out on the street

    A couple of weekends ago I took part in the practical part of a street photography workshop. The workshop also featured two online video meetups either side of the physical meetup to here about street photography from the tutor’s perspective, and then an opportunity to share photos and experiences with the others on the workshop.…

  • Wellington in Black and Gold

    The streets of Wellington are one of my happy places. The combination of years spent walking them in high school and when working after university, as well as living in the Wellington region for my early years means that I feel completely at home there. I support the sports teams from here, love the hills,…

  • Westie power lines and the suburban landscape

    One of the dominant features of West Auckland are the series of high tension power lines that run from pylon to pylon across the suburbs – across rivers and creeks, over residential properties and schools, alongside motorways, and through commercial and light industrial areas. Taking electricity generated down south to the north of the North…

  • The Hasty Contemplative: Photography and Spiritual Formation

    Really pleased to see my article “The Hasty Contemplative: the spirituality of street photograph” is out now in the latest issue of Refresh: Journal of Contemplative Spirituality (Summer 2023). It’s a brief exploration of my experience of photography as a way into spiritual formation and wellbeing. In the article, I talk about some of the…

  • Photography and Spiritual Formation: The Journey So Far

    When I started this blog post series a year or so ago I had no idea where it would end up, but after 12 posts it feels like time to have a little bit of a breather. So links to the set down below if you want to catch up.

  • Photography and Spiritual Formation (12): Nostalgia

    Photography quite naturally lends itself to feelings and expressions of nostalgia, where nostalgia might be seen as a deep or wistful yearning or desire to reconnect or return to some imagined past. The spiritual life can often becomes nostalgic as one looks back at times when perhaps God felt closer, faith more real, and things…

  • Photography and Spiritual Formation (11): Death and Dying

    Warning: This post talks about death and dying which some may find disturbing. A lot of photography is about life and living. We take photographs of births and birthdays, weddings and graduations, family gatherings, the natural world around us, and interesting parts of the built environment and those who live within it. Not so with…

  • Photography and Spiritual Formation (10): Self-Reflection

    Most YouTube photography channels tend to talk about camera equipment, composition, and tools and tricks for post-production. All those are really useful, especially if you’re trying to learn how to take good photographs or wanting advice on buying kit, but they often don’t connect with the reason you might be doing photography or how it…

  • Photography and Spiritual Formation (9): Mental Health

    A shorter post today connecting back to the Photography and Spiritual Formation (6) (which focused on therapeutic purposes for photography). Several street photographers I follow on YouTube with their own reflections on photography and mental wellbeing.

  • Photography and Spiritual Formation (8): Spiritual Practices

    In this post mention a few places I’ve found online that engage with photography and spirituality. Some of these are explicitly Christian, while others have a wider sense of things spiritual.