Peter Howard is Wintermute, mythologist

A Day in the Life of the City

27August2007 [directLink] [photography]

Bought a new digital SLR on Saturday — a Canon 400D — from Ted’s Cameras on Pitt St, who bundled in a second lens and all the bits and pieces. Spent Saturday afternoon charging batteries and getting it playing nicely with my computer and the website (meant some tweaks to the photo app, to handle portrait-orientation and some additional EXIF information). Downloaded Apple’s Aperture, which I now intend to purchase. Sunday afternoon I went out shooting. Wandered down into the city, around the north end and back across Hyde Park and home again. Took a bunch of photos; some of my favourites are in a new album: A Day in the City.

The 400D produces beautiful images — vibrant colours, crisp outlines. I shot in RAW (with a convenient mode that also produces JPEGs for previewing) and ended up actually taking a lot of the colour and sharpening out of the images, just ‘cause I love the muted colours so much. I’m still working out the lens (though it’s love at first site, and I’m yet to break out the bigger lens) — most of the images in this album were taken either at the wide-angle end (18mm) or the telephoto end (55mm). I’m also getting used to the various speed and exposure settings; it’s a little tricky being unable to preview the effect a setting might have, but the whole point of getting digital was to be able to experiment with those things. For this shoot, I left the exposure on automatic and was adjusting focus and ISO speed.

This whole shoot was really just experimentation, so I ran the better images through Aperture, tweaking exposure and the like. None of them are “photoshopped” though, in that any adjustments I made were made to the image as a whole, and only one was cropped — for the moment I’m loving the physicality of images produced by light and glass.

Crises of faith

16August2007 [directLink] [myth]

Cee-Lo’s ‘Sometimes’, The Collection

Sometimes faith is not knowing any better.

By the end of mass last Sunday I had what I would have once identified as a crisis of faith. By the time I’d walked home, I’d rationalised it away, and it occurred to me: I no longer have crises of faith. That is, not of faith in God, or in the Church. Instead, I’m only saddened at certain people (or wonder at their own faith). This is, actually, a big deal. For years, whenever I struggled with something — whether a point of faith or doctrine, or a particular interpretation I was being presented with (particularly back at school) — I’d identify that as a problem with my own faith. It’s taken me an awfully long time, and really getting away from certain environments, to have confidence in my own faith. And to realise that I’ve no problems with the Church, despite what some of Her people may say.

There are two regular priests saying masses at the cathedral. Both are young guys. But their styles are remarkably different. One is delightful, patient, always happy. His sermons are simple and beautiful, and most importantly, easy to relate to. They’re about life, about living in the world. The other guy is— almost the opposite. Not yelling or anything, but I always get the sense that he’s railing against the world. Whatever he’s talking about, the evils of the outside world always come up. And he lectures. His sermons get repetitive, long, and a little unpleasant. One of those led to last Sunday’s little crisis, and I don’t even remember what he was trying to say.

I find myself in environments like this altogether too often. There’s a certain romanticism in talking about ourselves as the Remnant, in painting ourselves as outsiders. But it too often becomes negative, oppressive. It becomes a bunch of scared people escaping from the world, retreating to “faith” because they don’t know any better.

And I’ve had enough. I have my Faith. In God, and His Church. I’ve no doubts about that. The trick’s going to be finding the right environment — somewhere I can avoid these little crises.

Faith, Hope, and Love. These are God’s greatest gifts.