The world is more complex today than what it was ten or twenty years ago. Technology has become so advanced; we now carry phones/ computers in our pockets. We have vehicles that can drive and park themselves and watches that tell us our heart rate, how many steps we’ve taken and how many calories we’ve burned. We are instantly connected to people we don’t personally know in other countries with social media, we can make video phone calls to our loved ones who are thousands of miles away. Yes, the world is more complex and technology is everywhere, but have we lost something in the process of all the advancements? I ask this question as I see generations of families in restaurants, stores and even walking down sidewalks or at the park attached to their devices, talking, texting, snap chatting, playing games, searching Google, Facebook, Twitter or a number of other social media outlets. What is being lost is the personal connection that we once had with the people around us or of seeing the wonderments that God has created in nature. Conversations are now held with a screen instead of face to face. We engage in discussions through a keyboard rather than using our voices to talk to our spouses, children, friends, neighbors or coworkers. We’ve become consumed with what is streaming through our news feed on Facebook or how many likes we have when sharing at any given moment, where our location is when we go somewhere and what we are eating for lunch. Have we become so dependent on being digitally connected at all times that we are forgetting to look around and see what beautiful exchanges that are taking place among people around us or the amazing wonders in nature? Like a young man helping an elderly gentleman with his car door on a blustery afternoon at the gas station. Or two little girls skipping and singing down the sidewalk while their parents follow laughing with each other and being pulled by the family’s dog on a leash. And even the young father at the local fishing pond teaching his son how to put bait on a fishing hook while grandpa waits patiently to help cast the line with his young grandson. Or the ripples on the water in that pond picking up the blue skies reflection that are now dancing about and the momma duck with her one and only baby are even having conversation with one another as they slowly drift by. There are conversations happening all around us, all the time, not just with human beings but in nature as well if we just look close enough and listen. I myself have fallen into the digital devices trap and needed to get away from it, so one year I spent months focusing on how to achieve macro photography. I wanted to show the little details that make up the interactions that take place in nature that we don’t see with the naked eye or what we just simply over look as we haven’t put our digital devices down long enough to focus on what is going on around us. Some of my proudest moments of photography that I have captured were when I slowed down and listened and looked closely at what was around me. Macro Photography is the art of taking close-up pictures that reveal details which can’t be seen with the naked eye. For example, while we can see the fly on the wall, our eyes aren’t equipped to make out the fine details of the hairs on it’s face. This is where macro photography vLENS continued on page 22