Thursday, March 20th, 2025
Taking pictures of the various stages of the lunar eclipse was something that I was glad I had 3.5 hours to practice with. And to be honest, I am looking forward to the next lunar eclipse so that I can practice more. In order to take pictures of all of the stages, I put my camera in manual mode so that I could change the shutter speed and aperture based on the conditions. When the moon was reflecting sunlight (even if it was partially blocked) my shutter speed was typically between 1/1000 and 1/2000 of a second. The sun reflecting off the moon is so bright that any speed slower than that really causes the brightness to wash out the photo. The faster speed also captures all the different facets (seas and craters) of the moon.
When the moon was in totality, however I had to change my shutter speed to be much slower. My shutter was typically open between 1 and 2 seconds. When it was behind Earth’s shadow, I had to allow the shutter to stay open longer so that it could take in more light. As I shared in the last blog, the reddish light on the moon was not direct sunlight, but it was refracted red light rays going through Earth’s atmosphere. That’s a lot of background to share what I felt in my spirit, but I think it’s necessary to paint the full picture. When we find ourselves going through a dark, challenging season, doesn’t it feel like we need to leave our shutter open longer so that we can take in more light?
When all is going well it feels like everywhere we go, everything we see and everything we hear is light giving. Our shutter doesn’t need to be open long to fill our light-tank. But then, the enemy launches an all-out attack on every part of our being. Everything we see and everything we hear tries to chip away at our identity and our faith in God. It’s in these places where we cry out to God more, we seek more, we worship more, and we listen more. As I hear in my spirit, we leave our shutter open longer to make sure we are not short-changing ourselves of light in this season.
There is another interesting fact about leaving the camera shutter open longer. It becomes more critical than ever that the camera is extremely still in the 1 to 2 seconds the shutter is open. Otherwise, our picture will be blurry which is exactly what happened to many of my totality photos. I feel like God is saying that when we are in those places where we are desperate for more of God we must learn to also be very still. The enemy wants us to go and do and stay busy trying to fill ourselves, but God says, “Be still and know.” (Psalm 46:10).
Final Thoughts…
We will all find ourselves in places of different light saturation throughout our lives. As we mature in our spiritual walks, we learn to recognize these places and respond accordingly. Instead of wondering what our lack is and staggering around try to find it and fill it we acknowledge our simple need for more of God’s light. Being filled with God’s light, love and presence isn’t a one-time thing. It’s something we need more of day by day and moment by moment. So, when you feel lack anywhere, leave that shutter open a little longer and stay still enough to let God do His thing.