With inspiration and apologies to Shakespeare, I began a photographic journey on a beautiful sunny day with bright puffy clouds in the sky on Sunday August 3, 2003. I returned to the beginning for me and photographed Holy Spirit Church on Washington St. in Newport. Holy Spirit was St. Stephen's when I attended from grades 5-8 graduating in 1961.

I was able to only photograph the exterior of church. The doors were locked and it was 1:00pm on a Sunday afternoon. Not a soul was in sight. Undaunted, I spent approximately an hour surveying the exterior and exposed one roll of film. I had 37 photos and felt internal warmth as I launched a new project.

After seeing the slides from the shoot, I decided to place them on my website, i.e., www.rohophoto.com as To Believe Or Not To Believe. Upon viewing the images online, I decided to place other images in my portfolio that I had photographed with religious subject matter. In 1997 and '98 I had photographed a Passion Play in Union City, NJ at the Park Theater. It's the oldest continuous running Passion Play in the USA. However, in 1997 the play had a Black Jesus for the first time. The role was alternated every other weekend with a white Jesus. I also photographed on Good Friday 2001 the walking of the steps at the Immaculata Church in Mt. Adams with my photojournalism class that I was teaching at NKU. It was the Friday one week after Timothy Thomas's death in Over-the-Rhine at 13th and Republic St. In the summer of 2002 I photographed Old St. Mary's Church in Detroit's Greektown just as the news began to break concerning pedophilia in the Catholic Church.

As I pondered the images on my website, I was not feeling the warmth from the previous Sunday when I photographed Holy Spirit in Newport. The Old St. Mary's images from Detroit moved me to photograph Old St Mary's at 13th and Clay St in Over-the-Rhine on Thursday August 7. I photographed one roll of Fuji Velvia slide film with images 1-22 of the church interior and images 23-37 of the exterior. At 12:08pm the sun suddenly broke through the clouds briefly as I was photographing the church's exterior for approximately one second. I felt the intense heat on my head and fortunately pressed the shutter for image number 33.

I posted the image number 33 on my website on Thursday evening August 7 and began to receive e-mails referring to the "faces" appearing in the clouds and especially in the sunlight. I had not seen the faces, just the brilliant sunlight. I looked back at my website and also began to make enlarged prints of the original slide number 33 and also cropped detail images of the sunlight area. To my surprise and delight I began to see the faces also. It gave me a feeling of warmth.

I continue to receive e-mails from people referring to the faces in the photograph. I have enlarged and framed the image as a positive print and as a negative print and have exhibited on the corner of 13th and Clay St. three times to the delight of many who have stopped to gaze into the light. Several have seen the faces without any prompting and many have also seen them, once I begin to point to them.

I am continuing my journey and am thankful for the light that came into my camera one Thursday afternoon in Over- the-Rhine. There is so much light in Over-the-Rhine. One only has to go look for it to see it. To Believe or not To Believe.

J. Michael Skaggs © 2003

J. Michael Skaggs © 2003

J. Michael Skaggs © 2003

J. Michael Skaggs © 2003