Captivating

I may get some flack for combining the images below along with the quote by John and Stasi Eldridge from their book Captivating, but as an image maker, recording beauty is generally my goal. Obviously humanity is intrinsically attracted to beauty, be it a landscape, art or within another person and the study of this phenomena I believe, reveals much about who we are and how we were created.

I place this post in-between the beauty of sprawling landscapes on purpose as the pursuit of capturing beauty in still imagery permeates across genres for me as an artist. Beauty is beauty and for me as a very visual person, it’s undeniable in its many forms. That being said and to clarify, I’m merely speaking of physical beauty here and as we all (should) know, there are many more layers of it than simply what we see. The quote below delves a bit deeper into that, but includes the two dimensional kind as well. I've had the blessing of learning this difference first, from a Mother who helped define multi-layered beauty so well that I managed to find the ultimate source of this blessing in my life, my wife. Who also happens to be physically beautiful, but truly does fulfill the heart, spirit and life portion of the quote below as well.

To be sure, ‘beauty is, without question, the most essential and the most misunderstood of all God’s qualities-of all feminine qualities, too.’ Just as the words we speak, food, alcohol or anything else God created, beauty can be used inappropriately and therein lies a great confusion over what to do with it. Personally, guidelines and limitations ensure my work, hopefully and if done successfully, is defined by a tasteful elegance, timelessness and....classic beauty : )

"Beauty is transcendent. It is our most immediate experience of the eternal. Think of what it's like to behold a gorgeous sunset or the ocean at dawn. Remember the ending of a great story. We yearn to linger, to experience it all our days. Sometimes the beauty is so deep it pierces us with longing. For what? For life as it was meant to be. Beauty reminds us of an Eden we have never known, but somehow know our hearts were created for. Beauty speaks of heaven to come, when all shall be beautiful. It haunts us with eternity. Beauty says, There is a glory calling to you. And if there is glory, there is a source of glory. What great goodness could have possibly created this? Beauty draws us to God.

All these things are true for any experience of beauty. But they are especially true when we experience the beauty of a woman- her eyes, her form, her voice, her heart, her spirit, her life. She speaks all of this far more profoundly than anything else in all creation, because she is incarnate; she is personal. It flows to us from an immortal being. She is beauty through and through.

Beauty is, without question, the most essential and most misunderstood of all God's qualities- of all feminine qualities, too. We know it has caused untold pain in the lives of women. But even there something is speaking. Why so much heartache over beauty? We don't ache over being geniuses, or fabulous hockey players. Women ache over the issue of beauty-they ache to be beautiful, to believe they are beautiful, and they worry over keeping it if ever they can find it.

A woman knows, down in her soul, that she longs to bring beauty to the world. She might be mistaken on how (something every woman struggles with), but she longs for a beauty to unveil. This is not just culture, or the need to 'get a man.' This is in her heart, part of her design."

-John and Stasi Eldridge, Captivating

-Imagery made for Leilani Dowding (model)

-Hair and makeup by the über talented, Dehx Star