Art Opening – Look at the Birds of the Air
Richard Topping is President and Vice Chancellor of the Vancouver School of Theology. He holds the St Andrew’s Chair in Studies in the Reformed Tradition.
He renewed his love of photography during Covid to get outside and enjoy God’s good creation. He has published pictures Canadian Geographic, Faith and Leadership and In Trust Magazine. He won the Award of Excellence in Visual Communication for his “Theology through Lens” article, which also received honourable mention as a short theological essay, from the Associated Church Press in 2025. His pictures are regularly featured in Richmond News Pictures of the Day and for three years running have been recognized as pictures of the year.
https://www.intrust.org/in-trust-magazine/winter-2024/theology-through-the-lens/
Last year he presented a curated collection of his work at Crieff Hills Retreat Center in Puslinch, Ontario. His work consists primarily of photographs of wildlife, principally birds along the Fraser River and its estuaries in the Richmond area. He is a member of the Canadian Geography society.
He also teaches theology with a particular interest in faith and imagination and the solicitous power of the beauty of God. He has written a few articles on faith and imagination in biblical interpretation under the rubric of the sanctified imagination and the work of the Holy Spirit.
He marvels at seeing and being seen by the good creatures he meets. Photography requires attention to the world that cures distraction for a moment and simply admires and enjoys the beauty (and sometimes the brokenness) of a world that God upholds all the time and nevertheless. Sometimes he just lowers his camera to watch, ravished in astonishment.