What Can Photography Teach Us about Faith?

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Greetings, everyone. It's so good to see everyone here today. Thank you for coming out for our second week of adult education in the 2025, 2026 program year. We had a great start last week when we learned about Deadheads and Christians, knowing them by their love. And this week we're going to be learning about what can photography teach us about faith. And we're really excited to have Ned Walthall back with us. He was with us. Was that last year, Ned? Just last year he was with us and it was just a powerful experience. If you were here and if you missed last week with the Deadheads and Christians, you can listen to it online. We recorded the presentation. I'm not sure that we recorded the PowerPoint, but you'll still get something out of it. And I will introduce Ned in a moment. But first, let's pray. Please pray with me. Creator God, you are the great artist. Thank you for making this beautiful world. Thank you for artists who help us pay attention to your handiwork. Thank you for our speaker this morning, Ned Walthall. We are grateful that he has been willing to share his gifts with us and so many thank you for our gifted friends who are with us today, as well as those listening later on. In Christ's name, we pray. [00:01:40] Speaker B: Amen. [00:01:43] Speaker A: Ned Walthall is a photographer based in Princeton, New Jersey. He received his MFA from the Institute of Art and Design at New England College, formerly the New Hampshire Institute of Art. His work has been shown throughout the United States and abroad. Since 2016, he has led a small group at Nassau Church called the Sacred Art of Photography. And I understand you have a partner in that leadership now, Tim Brown, is that right? Thank you, Tim, for your work and leadership. You can follow Ned on Instagram walthallstreetphotography. Please give a warm welcome for Ned Walthal. [00:02:51] Speaker B: Everybody. Okay, now. Right. So a brief warning. I wanted to do this in a kind of interactive way, but I also have a lot of material, and I realized when I was sort of putting it together that I'm simply going to have to do most of the talking at the front end. And the idea is I'm going to try to do this fairly quickly so that I can give you chances to talk and ask questions at the back end. So I kind of apologize for that, but that's kind of the only way I can do it. There's a lot of material here, and I want to get through it as quickly as I can so that I have time for you at the end. So I'm a serious photographer. And I know some of you are serious photographers. And if you're a serious photographer and involved in this tradition, you have some challenges to deal with. Because in Scripture, there's quite a bit of nervousness about the visual world. And you can't take a photograph of something that's invisible. So, for example, Paul says, we look not to things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. Well, photographs are of things seen. I mean, 95 million photographs are uploaded to Instagram a day, right? That's a lot of transience. That's a lot of seeing. Okay? And even, I mean, maybe even more troubling Jesus, of course, in his famous encounter with Thomas, because you have seen me, you have believed. And then comes the mic drop. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. So what are we doing taking photographs? Why are we preoccupied? Why are we with the visual world in this particular art form? What distinguishes a photograph from a painting is precisely this, that a photograph can only be made of something that's visible, an object that casts a shadow on a light sensitive medium. That's what a photograph is. Without that, without something that is visible, you can't make a photograph. So there's a kind of loophole that, for me, that's been created in all this by the famous critic John Berger, and this is my favorite quote about all of photography, among all photographers and historians of photography. A photograph, whilst recording what has seen always, and by its result, by its nature, refers to what is not seen. So all of a sudden, things are a little more complicated, aren't they? Photographs are about the visible, but they also point to things that are not visible. And I'm going to give you some examples of this as we move through these photographs. Now we're going to start with a photograph by Robert Frank from an amazing book. This is a book called the Americans, which Frank published in 1959. It is not a sin not to know anything about photography or not be interested in photography. But trust me, if you are, if you care about photography, you need to know this book. Frank got a Guggenheim in around 1955 and bought 2,000 rolls of film, packed his wife and his child, young child, into that Studebaker and drove all over the United States and photographed everything he cast his eye on. So you have a vision of America in 1955 that's absolutely kind of extraordinary. It's the most famous photo book ever made. Photo books were quite important at that particular Time, because museums were not buying photographs. And so if you wanted, as an art photographer, if you weren't photographing for Life magazine or you weren't doing commercial work and you wanted to get your photographs into the world, you had to make a book. And this is the book he made. Now, in this photograph, which is called Charleston, South Carolina, 1955. Right. It's lovely. And I think everybody recognizes what we're seeing here, right? An African American woman working in some capacity, probably as a nanny for almost certainly a white family, holding the young baby, a young child who's a member of that family. Right. And the photograph is quite lovely. It's beautifully composed. And we might be satisfied with that, for sure. I love the way he's kind of overexposed the photograph so that there's this contrast between the black skin of the African American woman and the white skin of the child. And it's moving. And I also like the fact that the African American woman has an earring, which suggests maybe she's being paid a living wage to do this work. I'm hoping. But I guess the question immediately becomes, what is not seen seen in this photograph? What is unseen in this photograph? Right. What's unseen in this photo? Well, one thing that's unseen is the parents of the white child. Right. Where are the parents of the white child? I suspect we all know where the dad is, right? The dad is probably down the street working at First national bank in Charleston. Where is the mother? The mother is probably, I'm guessing, I'm making an inference. The mother is probably at a circle meeting at First Presbyterian Church. Right. And this lovely African American woman is helping them raise their kids. I want to be clear. There is absolutely nothing wrong with child care. Childcare is an absolutely honorable thing to do. Affordable child care would do amazing things for the American economy. So that's not the issue here. The issue is that the irony in this photograph, which is partly about what's not seen, is the fact that in Charleston in 1955, right. If this family wanted to go out to dinner and they wanted to invite the nanny to come with them, maybe to assist with the child, she could not go. Because in 1955 in Charleston, Jim Crow laws would not allow African American people to eat in restaurants with white people. When this child got old enough to go to a restroom by herself or him, I think it's a girl. This African American woman in 1955 in Charleston would not be able to go to that restaurant in. Into that restroom with her. This was a completely Segregated society. The irony is that this woman can take care of this child, but she cannot co. She cannot, in fact, interact with other white people in certain situations. That's what's kind of unseen. I'm going to show you another one. This is the first picture in Americans, and it's entitled Parade Hoboken, New Jersey, 1955. Parade, Hoboken, New Jersey, 1955. Where's the parade? The first thing that's missing here is the parade. What else is missing? The faces of the women in the windows, the one on the left in shadows, the one on the right, hidden behind the American flag. Now, parades, right? Parades are. And flags, but parades are symbols of unity. Not all parades are bad. I know we all are thinking about military parades in Washington, that sort of stuff, but not all parades are bad. There's a lovely parade in Lawrenceville every year on Memorial Day, where people mostly show up and walk their dogs. But parades, parades are this symbol of. And they're a spectacle, and they're also a symbol of unity. They bind communities together when even at their best. Right? Same thing with flags. In this particular picture, Frank is reminding us that parades also exclude at times. Right. That parades are like Christmas. If you're not feeling, like really particularly happy or a member of the community in which you live, you feel even more isolated by a celebration that should really be inclusive and include everybody. Right? And that's particularly true here in the way that the American flag, also a symbol of unity, right. Actually blocks out the face of the woman on the right. Okay? So in both of these photographs, one of the ways that Frank works is to take what is sort of unseen in the photographs and use it as a kind of ironic cudgel, because he's not real happy with America in 1955. Now, let me be clear. I'd rather live in your city in 1955 than Moscow. But in 1955, America was not a perfect place. And these pictures are very, very good at pointing out some of the reasons why I'm going to go on to these pictures. Now, this is a. These are 10 photographs that are part of a process, part of a project by a photographer named Dawoud Bey. He's an African American photographer. He teaches at Columbia College of Art in Chicago, which is a great place to go if you want to learn photography. His work has been shown all over the world and in several museums. He's focused on the African American community. He's an extraordinary photographer. Photographer. So focusing mainly on portraits, he's worked often with children. He's great. I'm going to walk through these 10 photographs very quickly, be alert, take, you know, and then give you a sense of. Give you an opportunity to get a sense of what they're kind of about. And then I'm going to give you some more information about them and then I'll walk through them again really quickly. So here we go. It. So what you see here is an African American adult and an African American child. The photographs are dip ditches. They're two photographs that are placed together. The children and the adults are photographed separately. So it isn't that they are sitting next to each other in these pews and chairs and whatever. Each photograph is a separate photograph taken separately. In 1963, there was a bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, of a black church, the First Baptist Church, I think, on 16th street in Birmingham, that killed four, actually killed six African American children. Four boys. I think two girls were killed. So Dawoud Bey, in 2013, on the 50th anniversary of this event, decided that he would do a project called the Birmingham Project. The Birmingham Project. In the Birmingham Project, he recruited, first of all, children who were exactly the age of the children who were killed in the Birmingham bombing. And then he recruited adults who would have been exactly the age of the children if they had lived. And then he took photographs of each group in the same location, and then he placed them together side by side. So I'll run through them again. I have a question. Did he ask them to sit in a certain pose? No, I think he. I mean, I think he collaborated with them, but I don't think he was particularly specific. But I know where you're going. Yeah, the question was, did Bay ask them to pose in a certain way? So the question is, what is unseen in these photographs? Right? What's unseen? Yes, I think I heard someone answer that. What's unseen in the photographs, of course, is the actual children who were killed. And what's unseen in the photographs are the actual adults that they would have grown into. Right. And I think in some sense also there's something else going on. One of the things that's striking about these photographs, it seems to me, is that the way in which. And this goes back to your question, the way in which it's kind of shocking how the children look so much like the adults, even though they're photographed separately. Right. If you look at the hands, look at the way their hands are placed. There's one picture in particular, this one, right. The girl on the left, the woman on the right. Notice those arms that are placed in this way. Right. I mean, the question is, so how do we learn how to be adults? Right. How do we learn how to be adults? We just absorb osmosis. What other adults do. Your children won't admit this, but that's how they learn. Right. The fact is, in this room, in about, I don't know, 45 minutes, whatever, they're going to be children and adults, one wandering around in this room. And the children, whether they know it or not, are learning things from you. Exactly right. And of course, what's tragic about the Birmingham bombing, the loss of any child under any circumstances is just unfathomably sad. But the tragedy of this particular bombing, of this particular murder of children is that. Is that somehow that process is disjoined and interrupted, that the actual children who were killed in that bombing weren't given the opportunity to grow into the adults they could have grown into. That they were not given the opportunity to learn how to be the adults that they could ultimately be. Right. That in some sense. And also the other thing that is sort of unseen here, but certainly implied is the loss to the community of these adults. Every one of these adults is a pillar in the Birmingham community. Every one of these adults is making a significant contribution. They are business people. They are teachers. They are lawyers. They are doctors. They are people. In the case of the children who were killed, who have been stolen. Stolen by hate. Right. Another example of how photographs always are about what we see, but they're always pointing to things that are unseen. Right. Okay. So this photograph. Well, I'll tell you about it in a second. I think I have enough time. Let me ask you quickly. What do you make of this photograph? Who do you see here? Anybody. A war widow. A war widow. Okay. Okay. A war mother, maybe? Yes. Anybody else? A grandmother maybe? Right? Yeah. Okay, so let me tell you a little bit about this person. This is a photograph taken by an amazing photographer named Jess Dugan. Dugan actually studied with Du Wood Beyond. She was mentored by him. They and her partner, Vanessa Fabre, who's a sociologist, decided that they wanted to do a book about transgender people who were 50 years or older. And their interest in that group was that older transgender adults were would have grown up and experienced whatever they experienced as being transgender at a time when the world had no idea how to deal with transgender people and in many cases, didn't even know what transgender was. And so Dugan and their partner, Vanessa Vabbre, who was a sociologist, went around the country interviewing transgender people, and they published A composite of the interview next to a photograph that Dugan herself. A portrait that Dugan herself took. And this is a portrait of a woman named Bobby who is 83 years old. Okay. And I'll read you just a short piece from the actual description. They published this in a book called To Survive on this Shore. Sure. It's still in print. You really need to get this book. It's absolutely phenomenal. But I'll read you a little bit of the composite of the interview that I guess Vanessa Febre did. This is the voice of Bobby, who's 83. I have traveled extremely extensively. It started out when I was in the Air Force. I was the grandfather, or whatever you'd call it, of the drone program. I mean, I played golf with presidents, with Jerry Ford and whatnot. And I certainly have met the older Bush and younger Bush and Reagan a couple of times. I've been in the White House. I've been up and down the Pentagon, all levels. And I've also worked extensively with the CIA. Eleven years ago was my surgery to this date, almost. That would be when she is 72. Eleven years ago was my surgery to this date almost. And I started hormones over 12 years ago. And I really have been in the cross dressing business or the transgender business since I was probably four or five years old. I mean, I've got that history. And she concludes where I live now, I think some people know for sure who I am and don't really care, but I also don't have it written on my forehead. So there are those that don't. They just take me as another old lady, a nice old lady. So what is unseen in this photograph? Anybody? Her past. Yeah. Yes. Right. The person who invented the drone program. Right. I think we do see sadness. [00:25:56] Speaker C: That's why we said widow. [00:25:58] Speaker B: Or could be. Could be. She's looking longingly at that plane. That's true. That's true. Also true. That's also true. Thoughtfully. Yes. Well, I think that's what I would say about the sadness. I think she's pensive. I'm not sure it's regret. It doesn't sound. I mean, if you read the whole interview, it doesn't. I don't get the sense of regret. I think she's in a very positive place. So we're a World War II plane. [00:26:39] Speaker D: And it's a C130. [00:26:41] Speaker B: It's quite modern. [00:26:42] Speaker D: And so her looking at that and her Air Force background is a little bit of the connection. That's a little bit of the connection, yes. [00:26:51] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. [00:26:54] Speaker A: Do you want to. Do you want to repeat what. What he said? [00:26:57] Speaker B: Yeah, I'll give him the microphone and let him repeat it. Yes. Yeah, yeah. [00:27:04] Speaker D: I said this is a. We took this plane as a World War II plane, so initially we thought about her as a war widow or a war mother, but this is not a World War II plane. It's a C130. It's a modern aircraft. And the connection between her holding it and I think, creates a connection to her past, to her Air force past. [00:27:26] Speaker B: That's fair. Sure, sure, sure. Does it matter in this case? Does it matter about what's unseen? Tim? Yeah, do. [00:27:42] Speaker C: So I guess you can hear me. The composition, I think, is very interesting. [00:27:47] Speaker B: Here. [00:27:47] Speaker C: You've got the angle of that bright light up on the right and the angle of the wings of the airplane. And then what's to the right, I think, is her past. It's in the dark, and to the left is the bright sunshine that she now lives in. That's my take on the composition. I don't know what your question was. [00:28:13] Speaker B: But the question was, does it matter? Does it matter? In the case of this particular photograph, obviously there. There is a lot unseen, and much of what's unseen is only available to us through the interview that conjoins the photograph. Right. But I guess what I'm asking is, does it matter? I kind of think. I mean, I'll tell you, it's a rhetorical question for me. I kind of think it doesn't. Unless she wants it to matter to me, in which case, fine. Right. Okay. I'm going to move on to the last set of photographs. These are photographs by a guy named August Sander. He's a German photographer. He's a little crazy. His idea. His idea was that he was going to photograph. He was going to document, I think, everyone who was alive in Germany in the 20th century. But, I mean, he had a particular idea. I mean, he started in 1913. He got the idea in 1925, but it was a special kind of photography. He wanted to organize people in terms of types. It was a kind of typology. And he was interested in who people were in terms of how they were sculpted kind of by their class, their occupation. What, is something wrong? Yeah, it's a stunner by class, what they did for a living, their social standing, all of that stuff, their particular position in society. I mean, he wasn't. And what's kind of beautiful about the photographs is it wasn't as if anybody mattered any more than anybody else. It was simply people were who they are. And he had a way of photographing them in which you sort of immediately saw, you know, kind of who they were. So you might think that because he was sort of interested in types that, you know, he was sympathetic to the Nazis or that the Nazis might have been happy with them, but in fact, the Nazis absolutely hated him. They confiscated every photo, every glass negative he created that they could get their hands on. And the reason for this was, of course, that Sander was interested in everybody. He had no desire to exclude anybody. He had no desire to judge anybody based on sort of who they were or what their position was in society. He simply wanted to tell you, here they are. And so he took these extraordinary photographs of people. And the first one you see is the bricklayer. This was in 1928. And this, I guess, is what a bricklayer does in Germany in 1928. Notice the hands. Hands are really important in Saunders work. They tell you a lot. This is a photograph called the pastry cook. You cannot help but fall in love with this work. Right. What does a pastry cook look like in Germany in 1928? This is what a pastry cook looks like in Germany in 1928. You just know that's the gift of Sonder. This is a secretary at West German radio. Not to be confused with West Germany. West Germany did not exist at that particular point in time. This is 1928 again, but as you can see, extraordinarily gifted portrait artist. Amazing, really. This is, of course, a banker in 1929. And this is an architect in some cases. Not exactly sure why Sander would photograph husbands and wives. In this particular case, that's what he did. 1926. I think that's it. Right, yeah. Okay. Oops, sorry. Don't Lau. There we go. Okay, so that's Sander. Now here's the question I'll put to you. What is missing in these photographs? What is. I'm sorry, missing is not the right word. I tried to school myself on not saying that. What is unseen in Saunders photographs? I'm sorry, Nobody seems happy. Any tools that he has to use to brick, Lay bricks. Oh, the bricklayer. Yes, that's true. Well, that's true, yeah. Brick also, I mean. Yeah, true, yes. The context, what's happening in the world around them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is something that's true. I think of maybe of all photographs, but you're exactly right. So some of these are taken around 1928, 1929. Hitler will come to power in Germany in 1933. By 1939. Germany will be in a world war by 1945. This society will be destroyed. By 1945. This economy, the economy of the banker, the bricklayer, the pastry chef will be destroyed. Huge numbers of Germans will have died in the war. This world will have been turned upside down. Right. To use the phrase that some of you recognize, winter is coming for these people. We know this in photographs. There is always this. I'm going to use this word, but I don't think it's necessarily the right word. There's always this disequilibrium between what we know as observers of the photograph and what people inside the photograph know. Right. People inside the photograph know certain things. People outside the photograph, that would be us, know certain things. Right. That the things that we know are always unseen. The things that we know are not present in the photograph, and yet the photograph inevitably points to them. Think of a photograph of your parent when he or she was 25 years old. You look at that photograph and you think of all the things that happened, the ups, the downs, the in between, etc. The tragedies, the successes, the triumphs. Right. Unseen. And yet that very photograph held in your hand basically signifies to you all that stuff. There's a famous theorist named Merlin Barth who once said that photography was prophecy in reverse, like Cassandra, only looking backward. What he meant was that basically in every photograph we become prophets of the lives of the people inside. We become seers. We know what happened. We can predict, except that it's already happened. It's pointed that way backwards. That's unseen, and that's present in every photograph. Okay, that's all I have to say. Do you guys have any questions or comments or you want to talk about a particular picture, let me know. [00:37:25] Speaker D: So I'd like to comment on this picture, the Bricklayer. Yeah, Snow cone. Yeah, on the Bricklayer. So actually on the series. So it's the twenties, it's the Weimar Republic, and Germany is in a forced depression after World War I. [00:37:42] Speaker B: Yes. [00:37:42] Speaker D: Right. So these people are all stark images. When someone said they're not happy. They're all very stark images of people who are surviving in a depressed economy. [00:37:53] Speaker B: Yes. [00:37:55] Speaker D: So for me, an interesting thought process would be, what would these pictures look like in middle America in the last. Over the last 10 years, perhaps, where middle America feels like they're suffering from not a great economy? [00:38:12] Speaker B: Well, what would they look like if it was an American photographer photographing in the Depression? You have some of those? [00:38:18] Speaker D: Well, there would be that. [00:38:20] Speaker B: Yeah. You have some. Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, a bunch of other folks. But interestingly. Well, Sander did photograph unemployed people and other people who I think were suffering economically. But he was very much interested in people who were working. Because he thought that what you did in a particular society. Had a lot to do with what your identity was. Which, of course, is true to a certain extent. Anyone else? Thank you. Great comment. The one with the woman in the colors behind her is the staircase. And that was a symbol to me that she was trying to climb the ladder and get out of those terrible kinds of things that happened. You were talking about Bobby. Right this way. Yes. You mean a stairlight staircase behind her? Could be. Could be. Jacques. [00:39:41] Speaker E: What you haven't. The thing that has been with all of these pictures that you've shown so far is that the person knew they were being photographed. What about the street photography and even your work where the person does not know that they're being immortalized. And that they're not being posed for a particular reason? Your thesis was basically, these people were here at a particular time and place and light. And were left marvelously to create our own backstory of any of them. [00:40:37] Speaker B: Yeah. You've raised one of the absolutely fundamental questions that everybody thinks about and debates about and talks about in the context of photography, which is, does it matter when a person is aware of the fact that they're being photographed as opposed to when they're not? I think it was Susan Sontag who said, there's always something. There's always something that is present when people know they're being photographed. That is not present when they are not aware of being photographed. And what does that mean to the photograph and how we interpret it and how we think about it? I don't have a good answer to that. Most of the photographs here, I'm trying to think. I guess, with the exception of the Robert Frank photographs, certainly these are all portraits in which people were very much posing and very much aware of the fact that they were being. Participating in the making of a portrait. Just as is the case when someone sits for a painting. And I think it takes a great deal of skill as a photographer to deal with that. To take that photograph in a way that you feel like you really have the essence of that person, even though they know they're being photographed. That you know that this is not something that's fake. That you know that this is something that is somehow real. It takes an extraordinary amount of skill to do that. Not everybody can do that. I don't think I can do that. But I think I think Dawoud Bay is a genius at doing that. And I think just Dugan, who learned from him, is extraordinary at that. And I think, and I think Sander. I don't know what Sander said to these people, but he got them to engage in what he was trying to do in such a way that they seem very, very real to me. I mean, yeah, they're posed, but they're proud of them. Look at the pastry cook. I mean, he's really proud of himself. There's his bowl, there's his job. This is who I am. I'm in this society. This is what I am. I am a pastry cook. I love those photographs. I mean, I know this book is expensive. I saw this in a window in a bookstore On I guess 10th Avenue, and it was just sitting there on a stand. I knew of Ann August Sander, but. But I didn't know it was work. Well, and I walked in and I just bought the book. The only time in the day of Amazon and stuff went, how often does that happen? This book is extraordinary. There are almost like 600 just extraordinary plates. I mean, you should, if you can get it from the library or if you can afford it, you should just buy it and look at every photograph here and you're. You'll just be amazed. I mean, it's just extraordinary work. That's also true of Jess Dugan. Her work, she has done a lot of work since having done To Survive on this Shore. And a lot of it is in book form and her work is routinely shown in New York. If you get a chance to see her work, you should. I would also point out that one of the things. Quickly. That one of the things that I haven't. That isn't clear in looking at this work is that all these photographs, with the exception of Robert Frank, who is shooting with a Leica in 35 millimeter film in kind of a different time, all these other photographers, photographers are basically shooting with like big, big full format cameras, big boxes of cameras with 8 by 10 inch negatives. So the prints that are made from them are huge. And like the Dawoud Bade photographs, they look like a postage stamp up here, but they are. You know, when I saw them like at the Whitney, they are six feet by four feet. And Dugan's photographs are like, you know, four feet by six feet. They're just massively huge because she's using a big, big camera so that she can basically work from a negative or either digital or film that enables you to enlarge A picture basically to that size, and that has a huge impact on what you're seeing. These photographs are like. They're like Titian. They're big, big, big paintings. And the detail really pops out. Sure. [00:45:33] Speaker C: All of the portraits. All of the portraits feature people who are not smiling. And I'm thinking maybe that's typical in portrait photography. Somehow you can convey more emotion when the people. They look more pensive, maybe more pained, and that it's more impactful when people are not going, geez. [00:46:02] Speaker B: That'S a great question, actually. It's a great practical question. I think in the case of the Bay photographs, I don't think there's a lot to smile about in those photographs. And I'm sure that. I mean, they knew. They understood the Birmingham project. They knew what they were participating in. Dawid is very good about collaborating with the people he photographs and keeping them kind of fully informed about what he's doing. He's that kind of guy. So I think that those photographs, it would have been hard to smile. There's something close to a smile in some of them, but it would be hard. I mean, that's tough. In the case of. To survive on this shore, there are photographs in which people are gleeful, in which people are massively smiling and happy. Well, look at the COVID You can't see it enough here. But if you come up and look at the COVID or look through this book, there are definitely people who are smiling, but there are also people who are very sad. I think to be 70 or 80 years old and have gone through the experience of transgender in the United States in, you know, would be hard, you know, I mean, if you come out of that in a good place, praise Jesus. But I think it would be hard, you know, and I think that shows in some cases also. You know, one of the things I'm discovering now that I'm 72 is, you know, there is some sadness in being 72. You know, I'm not 52. I'm not 22. I'm okay with that. But, you know, but no, I think you don't want to tell people not to smile, but that's how hard. That's part of the art of portraiture, is how you handle that and how you engage with your subject. Right. [00:48:06] Speaker A: Let's give another big hand for Ned Washington. [00:48:08] Speaker B: Thank you very much. Thank you. [00:48:12] Speaker A: Thank you, Ned. His work, you can find it online at N. Walthall Street Photography, and you can find the work of his, Tim Brown's, and other small group participants, many of whom are in here today, next door in our gallery. It will be there for the rest of the month. We are press. [00:48:32] Speaker B: Yes. Let me say one more thing because I neglected. Yeah, I neglected to tell you something. So I'm in the Church directory. You can reach me at in. As in ned, last name Walthall, 52, year I was born, mail.com. but you can also find that in the Church directory if you can't remember it. So if you have a question or you want to email me and say that presentation was a load of a word that we don't normally use here, or if you want to talk about a specific photograph or anything like that. I love to talk to people about photography. I will reply, just not in. Maybe in the next 24 hours, but I will get back to you. So if you want to get in touch with me later, please feel free to. Glad to talk to you about that. [00:49:21] Speaker A: Thank you, Ned. Next week we are pressing on with a new series, Living Words, exploring our new Chancel texts. Part one will be the Art and Architecture of the Sanctuary with Carol Fagundis and. And Kim Cleon, who will guide us through the visual transformation of the Chancel and apps. We hope you'll join us. Thank you.