Last week I was out in my backyard at 8:30 AM and took pictures of insects until about 9:30 AM. I spent another hour just sitting outside reading my daily Bible reading on the Youversion app. I willingly spent two hours outside in 80 degree weather! Why? Because photography has given me a greater appreciation for the world around me and even more importantly: it’s helped me appreciate God a bit more.
Photography is more than taking pictures, it’s capturing light and moreover capturing whatever the light or lack thereof helps you see. The field of photography is a broad one but the branch that has a grip on my heart is Macro Photography. Macro Photography, simply put, is taking pictures of small objects and making them full sized. Many photographers use this to take pictures of insects, which is right up my alley.
For those who don’t know, Ive had a love of insects my whole life. Not insects specifically but spiders. They are not the same, even though folks always lump them together. My love of the super hero Spider-Man translated into a love for the animal he was modeled after. I used to check out the same spider books from the library in third grade because I couldn’t get enough of the pictures. I just thought they were so cool.
Fast forward to today and now I’m walking around taking pictures of bugs on the side of house and looking in every nook and cranny for my eight legged neighbors. I used to hate the outdoors and the heat but now I can’t wait to go outside and see what I find.
But what does taking pictures of bugs have to do with God and His creativity? We’ll have to go back once again but this time stop in 2011 or 2012. I was taking a summer course and it was Entomology. I knew what this word meant I asked my fifth grade teacher the name of scientists who studied insects and she told me they were called entomologists. My Entomology instructor (shout out to Doctor Hunt) started the class of by talking about the ten plagues that God brought upon Egypt. One of those plagues was insect related as God used locusts to plague the fields and the wildlife. Dr. Hunt pointed out that in the Biblical narrative, God didnt summon these locusts out of nowhere, He brought in winds from the East when Moses stretched out his hands (Exodus 10:13). Dr. Hunt used this narrative to talk about how locusts are in a certain area at a certain time because of their life cycle. I was hooked from the first day until the final exam.
Dr. Hunt emphasized slowing down and onserving the world around you. When you stopped moving long enough, you could detect motion of insects around you and also realize just how abundant these little critters are. Our big project for the semester was to collect sixty different types of insects for our own personal insect collections. I was shook and didn’t think there were sixty different insects in my vicinity, but oh how wrong I was.
Since I've taken up macro photography I took it upon myself to see how many different types of insects were in my state. There were just over a thousand insects in my state alone!! sixty wasn’t even a drop in the bucket. This class was my favorite college course; I had folks calling me saying they had captured bugs for me and everything. This hobby of mine has me poised in the heat focusing on a creature that gets overlooked or deemed a pest, while I am doing my best to capture its beauty.
Sometimes I just can’t believe that God created so many different insects. Not just that, he was creative and intentional with their coloring and shapes. Just as folks look at the Grand Canyon and believe there is a God, I feel the same way when I look at insects and I capture them in my photography. God was just as intentional in the formation and placement of our planet as He was with the grasshopper and caterpillar. He has a plan for each and every one of them, so of course He has one for you. Your color, shade, voice, shape, it was all designed on purpose and with purpose. God cares for the bees, so I believe that He cares enough about you to meet your needs.
For more photography, make sure you check out my personal Instagram page @kennyfresh1025.
Note: All images of insects were taken by Kenneth L. Woods.
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