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2 Responses to “The Ordination of William Miller”

1. 1 bbaldowski
   May 21, 2008 at 6:50 am

   It’s a nice picture but I thought you were not allowed to take pictures of ceremonies done at the church.

2. 2 Jeremy Clifton
   May 22, 2008 at 3:56 pm

   Well … the photo was actually taken afterwards. But, I have a slightly better understanding of the “rule” than I did in 2003. Most Lutheran churches (as far as I can tell) either don’t want any photography during a service, or want it to be non-distracting. IE, no flash, no cruising up and down the aisles, etc.

   I did take some photos during the service, but from the balcony where I was out of sight of everybody except a few choir members. I’ve yet to see anybody take photos from down in the sanctuary itself, except that I have on rare occasions, and only when specifically instructed to do so to capture something specific (most recently to get a few photos of the handbell choir and of Rachel’s dad doing communion … neither of which could be done effectively from in the balcony). I’m honestly not very comfortable with it, and wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t been asked to by the pastor himself.

   Back at Hope, it used to annoy me to no end when parents and/or relatives would pop up all over the place and take six thousand pictures with the flash on during a Baptism or confirmation. I definitely want to avoid that. I guess I’m probably a bit anal but it made it hard for me to concentrate on anything but the obtrusive person with the camera. I imagine, though, it was probably the same with many other people.

   I know distractions happen, but to me there is a difference between for instance a child being noisy in the service and some dude taking pictures. Really, the latter is “unnatural” and the former is more “natural” for lack of better terms. Overall, I think it is good to involve the children in the service to as much of a degree as is possible. On the other hand, nobody is going to die or suffer if there isn’t a picture of Bobby Joe being baptized or Jimmy Rob and Sue Matilda getting hitched, as nice as it might be to have pictures.

   Of course I’m in the odd boat of thinking that many people take too darn many photos of their kids and relatives and obsess over it, even though I do take a lot of pictures of Autumn, and I like photography in general. I think about my Uncle Gene … I have about 10 photos of him total from his lifetime, and as much as I loved him, they are more than enough for me. What I really treasure are the memories more than the photos. And … for Autumn, she won’t really care one way or the other. That’s natural … she didn’t know him. Having umpteen zillion photos of him won’t make a difference for her, because she never knew him. What she will care about are probably the stories, but of course not to the same degree I do.

   Enough rambling on that topic.

   In any case I certainly wouldn’t have been up in the chancel with a camera during the service! Plus that was a longer exposure (I think pretty close to one second) so I had them hold still for a looooong time so I could get a good shot w/o having to use the flash, which I detest using most of the time.