I was watching NBC Nightly News the other night and they had a piece called Making a Difference that I found so inspiring I wanted to share it.
Some of the photographers who photographed pictures from the aftermath of the Katrina hurricane had their work on display recently in New Orleans. Instead of just looking at pictures of the tragedy they decided to find hope in their community in a very unique way. These photographers held a workshop for students to help them photograph the city how it is today and show how much the community has come together and kept their culture and city alive in the last five years.
I love this idea! Instead of only focusing on all the negativity and sadness that this community is completely justified in feeling, they chose to focus on all the wonderful things in New Orleans. One of the girls in the video said it so perfectly.
"It's about the people and the culture and not about the physical."
This story brought to mind a song called Beauty from Pain. It's about how we go through rough times but in the end we come out on the other side of it more beautiful because we've learned something about ourselves and found that we are strong. We just have to look for the beauty in our pain. It's there. It's just hard to see when you are in the middle of it.
The chorus says:
After all this has passed, I still will remain
After I've cried my last, there'll be beauty from pain
Though it won't be today,
Someday I'll hope again
And there'll be beauty from pain
You will bring beauty from my pain
I feel like this is the exact reason behind this workshop. They made it through their painful times and are now able to find beauty from it. :-)
Here are a couple of my favorite pictures from the students. I encourage you to visit the website and see the rest for yourself. They are very impressive!
The chorus says:
After all this has passed, I still will remain
After I've cried my last, there'll be beauty from pain
Though it won't be today,
Someday I'll hope again
And there'll be beauty from pain
You will bring beauty from my pain
I feel like this is the exact reason behind this workshop. They made it through their painful times and are now able to find beauty from it. :-)
Here are a couple of my favorite pictures from the students. I encourage you to visit the website and see the rest for yourself. They are very impressive!
I'm going to spend my day looking for the beauty in every situation.
Have you been inspired by anything recently? I'd love to hear about it. :-)
5 comments:
What a wonderful post. Thanks for sharing.
these are amazing...
its also amazing how God works. beauty from ashes. It makes the painful worth living through because we never know what is going to come from it.
glad you got the music to work too!!!
Great post!! I'm headed over to check out the website now. I visited New Orleans in 2004 and it was such a great city with great people. I'm glad the hurricane didn't destroy their spirit, and more glad the negative media coverage at the time of the hurricane didn't destroy their spirit!
Thanks for visiting my blog and for your nice comments. I hope you'll visit again!
my fav is the one with the little dog! haha :)
These really are amazing. And what a lovely challenge to set yourself. Thank you for visiting my blog by the way and for your lovely comments about by wedding album. I love your blog so i'm very happy you led me back here! xx
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