Synopsis
The Lord Is Our Shepherd is filled with inspiration and beauty. G. Eric Matson's exquisite hand-colored photographs illustrate each verse of the Twenty-Third Psalm. He describes the life of the shepherd and his sheep as they exemplify the meaning of each of the verses of this beloved Psalm. His deep faith and the understanding he had acquired from his life in the Land of the Bible, makes each verse come to life, full of the rich meaning intended by David as he wrote the words. Eric Matson lived and worked in the Holy Land at a time when it still preserved all the sights and sounds of it's Biblical past. He was able to capture a land unchanged for centuries in the modern photographic image. At that time, photography was still only in black and white, but he applied the artistic touch of hand panting his photographic glass plates to capture the color of the land and its people. His time in the Holy Land (1896-1946) spanned an era when photography was available to capture scenes of rural life while it was still being lived as it had been over the centuries. The Lord Is Our Shepherd carries us back to the time of David and helps us to visualize what he felt as a shepherd tending his sheep in the days that molded his early life. These are the days that prepared him for the momentous future that lay ahead of him. Eric Matson's vivid descriptions of the life of the shepherd and the sheep fill the reader with awe at the caring and personal relationship of our Lord, the shepherd, and we the sheep.
About the Author
Eric Matson was born on a farm in Nas Parish in Dalarna, Sweden, June 16,1888. Eight years later his family joined a small community of Swedish and American families in the Holy Land. These Americans and Swedes shared a deeply felt need to dedicate their lives to simple Christian service to God and humanity. They pooled their resources, lived a communal life similar to that of the early church, and bent their efforts toward helping the people of the Bible Lands. The American Colony, as it came to be known, flourished through hard work and simple living. In ministering to the sick and needy of Jerusalem the colonists came to be loved by Arabs, Jews, and Christians alike. As a teenager Matson took special interest in the process of photography which was still in its infancy. He learned quickly, by trial and error, all the complex techniques that separate professional photography from that of amateurs and experimented with new ones. He was particularly successful in using oil paints for hand coloring photographs. Matson’s many photographs documented the dramatic changes that swept over the Holy Land and the Middle East during World War I and the following mandate period, as well as the previous two decades of Turkish rule when the sites, customs, and dress were very like those of Biblical times. Among Eric Matson’s many photographic achievements are two pioneer projects in color photography for the National Geographic Society in the early Nineteen Hundreds. Following the turn of the twentieth century, the name of G. Eric Matson and documented photography of daily life in Bible Lands were synonymous throughout The Holy Land, the U. S., Canada, England, and Australia.
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