"From Infancy..."

I created this image of my 8 month old daughter Vera and her father, who is raising her up in his arms. It was crafted by using a lensbaby, a lens that I use which works with a very small focal plane and blurs out the rest of the image. I wanted to capture my daughter's expression of childlike confidence in her father. It was challenging to take a photograph of a moving baby, but I finally captured one that gave the effect of a surreal world while still seeing an expressive child. Once the image was in Photoshop, I copied and pasted the flowers from the lamp behind her to give the image even more of a "virtual reality" feeling. By just playing with the levels and adding some old photo effects I was very pleased with the final results and I imagine this is how God sees us as we were brought into light through baptism.

I want this image to evoke the significance that the Holy Scriptures has on children, and that from infancy you can be communicating to them God's love and raise them to know God's saving work. As a parent, I feel my most important job is to implant in the minds of our children the knowledge of Jesus as our Savior. It can be a scary, unforgiving world and that is shown by the darkness surrounding Vera in this image. But with God's light of salvation, our children can be raised to the light of Jesus, and as parents we can know that with his word at baptism they are saved. We are free and his light shines on us so we may be truly happy and our childlike faith is visible to the world.