spotting good [photoplay with @thehighcalling]

Written by Dan King

Christ-follower. husband. father. author of the unlikely missionary: from pew-warmer to poverty-fighter. co-author of activist faith: from him and for him. director of family ministry at st. edward's episcopal church. president of fistbump media, llc.

November 24, 2010

I like to develop my creative side. But I’m not really into things like poetry, and I’m not a very good artist. But I really enjoy dabbling in photography.

I don’t even have a fancy camera… only my little Kodak EasyShare and the surprisingly decent camera on my DROID.

But regardless of the tools that I have available to me, I’m having fun growing my skills in this incredible art!

That’s why I like to do the PhotoPlay prompts at The High Calling. And the current prompt is ‘spotting good‘. The task is to find five photos from other photographers that I consider good, blog about why I think they’re good, and then share my own photo inspired by these other photos.

So as the Social Media Editor for the network, I thought it would be cool to highlight a few of the network’s photographers. They’re all so amazing, and they inspire me so much… I knew it would be easy to ‘spot good’ among their work!

sabbath by Kelly Sauer

For me, there are lots of things that make this photo good, but mostly it’s the perspective that does it. I love photos that are taken from a point of view that one normally wouldn’t be looking.

vacant barn by Darlene (a.k.a. A Simple Country Girl)

Old buildings are awesome. But I don’t know that I’d be brave enough to take a picture of the old rusted out shed in my backyard and have it come out looking as cool as this photo.

bench by Amy@haven-space

I love the contrast in black-and-white photos, and that the object in this photo (the bench) isn’t centered in the frame. Cool.. I just want to be there.

fishingboatsunset by Jessica McGuire

The light in this one is really cool. I can almost feel it glaring in my eyes as I look out onto the lake. The shadow of the men in the boat surrounded by the reflected light of the sunset is better than a clear shot of them. Position and timing are everything here.

apple by Ann Voskamp

So simple, so colorful. I’m not sure what it is about this one. Maybe it’s how the focus on the apple in the hand is so dramatic compared to the background. But this picture makes me want to tell a story…

Now it’s my turn…

For my photo, I wanted to capture something that’s part of my everyday life. I work around computers and technology all day long. Just as the people I featured here capture (very well) their world, I wanted to capture part of mine.

But I wanted to look something that I normally wouldn’t think of photographing, and look at it from a different perspective. I took this photo on my DROID, and edited it with PhotoShop for Android. So it was done completely on my phone.

So here it is…

15 Comments

  1. Kelly Sauer

    oh fun, Dan! love this collection!

    Reply
    • @bibledude

      i’m glad that i was able to include some @kellysauer work in this collection! i may have to get a guest post sometime from you… i love your stuff!

      Reply
  2. Deidra

    These are all so beautiful. Stunning, in fact. And yours? All on your phone? I am impressed!

    Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!

    Reply
    • @bibledude

      I’m enjoying photography, especially mobile photography… I think that it can be used with social media to really help tell the story of the church’s ministry to the community and missions all around the world. The stuff that I did in Haiti is a good example, and I just had a new post go up today about a local Thanksgiving outreach ministry event…

      http://bibledude.net/2010/11/they-came-for-the-turkey-and-we-gave-them-the-lamb/
      The photos in this one aren’t amazing, but I’m using them on this blog and on Flickr to help write our own Book of Acts about the work that God is doing in our world today…

      I love it! And I’m having fun learning (as I did with this photoplay)!

      Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours today too Deidra!

      Reply
  3. Jezamama

    Thank you for including my photo. I love that you took your pic with your phone.

    Reply
    • @bibledude

      I want to do a lot more with mobile photography, especially because of the social media implications. I just think that it’s great when you can get good photos and share them immediately… especially when it comes to missions, ministry and outreach. I’ll be practicing a lot more!

      Thank you for the inspiration! I always LOVE your photography!

      Reply
  4. Claire Burge

    #fistbump to you Dan.

    Thanks for highlighting the photographers.

    I really really really like the way your eye is developing its vision. The perspective here is great!

    As for the droid and photoshop. #fistbump again.

    Reply
    • @bibledude

      #fistbump to all the photographers featured in this post! They’re contributing great work over @thehighcalling!

      This was a really fun and educational exercise! It’s helpful to have a benchmark to measure against, but also excellence to be inspired by. Thanks for organizing this Cleh!

      Reply
  5. Brock S. Henning

    I’m a geek myself (I say that with much pride!) both personally and professionally, and I love the perspective here. Sometimes though, after seeing that image all day long, I need a break from technology. 😉 Thanks for sharing!

    Reply
    • @bibledude

      Yeah… my photo here sorta reflects what my life is like sometimes. Moving throughout the day from one computer to the next, and on down the line. I definitely hear ya on the need to unplug from time to time!

      Thanks for popping by and sharing your thoughts Brock!

      Reply
  6. SandraHeskaKing

    These are so cool! I might need some Droid photographic lessons. 😉

    Reply
    • @bibledude

      I really want to continue working on some stuff for mobile photography because of the social media implications for things like missions and outreach. I did some cool stuff with mobile photography when I was in Haiti, and want to develop that more as a means of sharing the work that God’s doing in the world today.

      Maybe we can experiment along with each other!

      Reply
      • SandraHeskaKing

        I had to meet with Mr. Verizon today for some phone/photo issues. He removed my app killer, that may have been partly the cause, and installed a different one.

        So now I’m in. 🙂

        Reply
  7. Jethro

    theres a nice symmetry to this photo – expressed in the lines but also in the subject. training rooms are normally symmetrically arranged also.

    Reply
    • @bibledude

      thanks for the comment on that photo Jethro! i’m really working on my photographic eye, and this was a big experiment for me. it’s cool to know that someone else picked up on some of the things that made me capture this one.

      Reply

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spotting good [photoplay with @thehighcalling]

by Dan King time to read: 2 min
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