Right now there is a cool photography exhibit on “display” on our church’s website.

(Sojourn used to run an art gallery on Bardstown Road that was a victim of its own success…. it had to be shuttered because of zoning restrictions and the like after it grew in popularity. So now they re creatively utilizing the web). Michael and Mickie Winters (who are also newlyweds) are friends of ours who have been in our community group for well over a year. Both are really talented photographers and thoughtful Christians.

Mickie’s portion of the exhibit is about trees. She comments, “My hope is to expose the extraordinary in the most ordinary of things.”

She looks at nature and sees beauty that we overlook and take for granted because we’re exposed to it all the time, and encourages us to take a second look at the wonder of creation. “I try to take nature photography and reveal the dynamic side of it. The raw pure beauty of it. I want to expose the details others might not see, and the symbolism most do not.I feel like God reveals Himself in all of His creation. I’ve only focused this time around on His creation of trees.”

Mickie tries to remind us that in nature there is clear evidence of a creative and wonderful Designer.

Michael’s work similarly takes a common feature of nature and seeks to expose the beauty we normally don’t notice. He focuses here on rocks. He explains this focus, saying “I choose to notice details of Creation in order to keep myself safe from the ominous threat of vision-deadening entertainment.”

He essentially calls us to slow down in a culture that moves at warp speed and bombards us with constant sensory stimulation: “We must form a new aesthetic, one that is less thrilling, more calming, and more provacative to contemplation.”

Anyway, I encourage you to check out their work. The computer doesn’t do justice to what it looks like in print (it looks really cool), but it’s definitely worth checking out nonetheless.