La Bloga de Timoteo

Hello There! Hope you have been enjoying reading about our adventures in Guatemala and Mexico. Instead of writing about our day's excursion, I wanted to start a discussion about photography in other countries and cultures.
While walking around in Antigua and even while on other mission trips, I have noticed the amount of photos being taken of locals while selling, sitting and going about their normal days; and most of the time this is being done without their explicit consent. Don’t worry, this isn’t me wagging my finger at everyone, mainly because if anything, it would be me wagging my finger at myself.
Why should we care if and when and how someone is photographing someone else? Let’s look at a few reasons why we might be photographing a local in a different country or culture.

1. “Because I find their (the locals) interesting/strange/confusing and I want people back home to experience this with me.” For a long time this was my reasoning and frame of mind. I love studying people. I have a BA in Psychology and wanted to double major in Sociology. The internal and external mechanisms of human behavior fascinate me. So when I come across a picture or video of a person or people behaving or dressing differently, I want to understand every nook and cranny of the reasoning and context of those behaviors or attire.
2. “I can use the images of a wanting child or overworked mother to help fund raise.” This is my most recent frame of mind. Fund raising for a cause, especially for some sort of poverty, is admirable. In terms of looking outside of ourselves and seeing God’s creation for its beauty, it’s a good first step. Studies have shown time and time again that when a potential donor can connect emotionally with the subject of a cause, that potential donor is more likely to donate and donate more than they would if they hadn’t connected.
3. “I want to remember the moments here as I saw them first.” We sat on two planes, took a bus for a number of hours, spent time being bitten by foreign bugs and spent a large sum of money to do so; why shouldn’t we want to be able to flip back through some photos and videos and re-experience our time in this country? This frame of mind is planning to try and relive what has already past.

So here’s the crux, why I’m even writing this post. We, as creations of God and followers of Christ are called to respond to the love of God’s creation through the sacrifice of God’s Son—by also loving that creation. The question is: how do we love God’s creation?
By not turning the complex creation of humanity into a diverse set of objects. If we think of humanity as a group of individual creations where each is a multi-faceted, we can evaluate our photography behavior as a product of whether the photo will detract from the individuals' creation.