For as long as I can remember, I have loved the beach. My parents will tell you how much of an outdoors person I was growing up…. or rather how much of an outdoors person I wasn’t. I’m still not – but there is one place where I love being outdoors and that is the beach. I partly put this down to the fact that growing up, and even now, holidays were spent in a beautiful village on the Welsh coast. Days were spent on the beach, rain or shine. It was a place my heart felt at home. My favourite things about this place were the sunsets and the unique waterfall that cascades onto the beach.
In more recent years however, I put this down to something my creator Father put inside me when he created me. When I look at skies that have turned pink, red, orange with the setting sun or the vastness of the ocean; when I look at the raging sea or walk along the shoreline with a large expanse of beach around me; when the golden hour light hits stormy grey clouds or I see raindrops on an intricate spider web I cannot do anything but marvel at the beauty of God’s creation.
I am not the only one. My Gran once wrote these words:
Loving God, thank you for the opportunities you have given me through my travels to wonder at the miracle of your created world.
To ask questions is to explore. Exploration is really the manifestation of wonder. It is wonder given direction. All explorations assume that there are wonders to be seen and marvels to be discovered.
O Creator God I can recall these mystical moments when I felt emotions so intense that they will remain until eternity part of my conscious. Moments when I felt fully alive, full of incredible joy and conscious of your presence …. the sunrise at 5:30am on a beach in Puorto Pollensa, watching Cadair Idris change from black, to purple to green as the sun appears above the opposite hill…. God is teeming with wonders and adventures, the world is mysterious and strange beyond imagination. The miracle of the patterns of water on a spider web… the longing for beauty, the love of God.
For me, photography is the means by which I explore the beauty of the world around me. I connect to God through capturing the beauty of the world around me. I heard someone say recently that people have come to faith through beauty; the beauty of the world; the beauty of creation; the beauty of landscape. I can recall many mystical moments – just like my Gran did – when out with my camera that filled my heart with awe and wonder. In those moments, my faith grows that little bit stronger as I connect with my Creator, the creator of the world. The same Creator who created you and me.
King David summed it up perfectly: “The heavens declare the glory of God: the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet, their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world” -Psalm 19:1-4
Whether you have faith or not, I’m sure you will agree the world we live in is a beautiful place so I encourage you to get out, take time and stop to marvel at the beauty of creation.
Capturing Simple Beauty Photography 