I have always thought it was interesting we use the word talent to describe a skill or aptitude. I started thinking about the servants who used their talents and wondered what talent they used to double the talent they had been given. Although this detail wasn't in the story, they had to risk the talent they had been entrusted and they had to work to learn ways to increase their talent for the sole purpose of serving the master.
So what does this picture have to do with talents. It is a picture I took inside the Lufty Baptist Church in the Smokemont section of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. A camera doesn't see like the human eye. If you were to just go inside this building a take a single picture you couldn't get a good exposure because your human eye can see a greater range of light the the camera. So if you exposed for the window to see the green tree outside, the inside of the church would be under exposed and you would see no detail. If you exposed for the inside of the church, the window would be over-exposed and would be solid white. I knew there was a process called HDR that could be used but I was afraid to try it. I thought it would be too hard or take too much time, so I just tried to take this kind of picture without HDR. But when I saw this church, I just thought it was beautiful. I thought about all the people that had worshiped here, been married here, celebrated here. So I set up my tripod, took several pictures, exactly alike with different exposures and then learned to use Lightroom to create this HDR image. I used my talents. It took work. It was a risk. But I hope I created something with the talent that God has given me.
I will keep on learning new photography skills: getting to know my equipment so that I can use it without thinking; developing the ability to compose an image that brings emotion to my viewers; and conquering my fear of hiking to new places. I want to remember each time I pick up my camera to use the "talent" that I have been entrusted with to serve my Master so that he will say to me, "Well done, my good and faithful servant."
Below are 2 more pictures I created of the inside of the church using HDR and then 2 pictures I took of the outside of the church because I thought it was beautiful.