Achieving Catharsis Through Nature Photography
This morning, I found it inside of myself to answer the 5.30am alarm call for the first time in months. This hasn’t been the most productive year for my photography portfolio to say the least. The motivation levels to get out and shoot have waned for much of it, as has my zest for life itself at times. I am not one to ‘fail’ too often, so, after far too many snoozes already this year, I was determined to beat myself this time round, and get out of bed before the world woke up to create something now that the seasons are finally beginning to show signs of change.
Summer has never particularly been my favourite time of the year to create, and I boast only a handful of ‘green’ photographs in my portfolio, so I always forgive myself for not getting out too often during the months of 4 and 5am sunrises. This mornings’ photoshoot over in the Shropshire Hills provided me with the boost that I’ve been needing for a long time, and it has come at the perfect time. Autumn will soon be upon us, and this is, without doubt, my favourite period to be creative. The creative batteries are overcharged, and almost ready to blow.
Photography has become my fuel, my life source, my magic elixir. If I have a meaningful photograph on my camera, then I can feel like I’m walking around on a cloud for weeks. It’s difficult for me to remember what my life looked like before I found creativity and my personal form of expression. The term ‘a photograph speaks a thousand words’ has a much deeper meaning since I began creating photographs myself half a decade ago now. This year, I’ve been incredibly busy with words as I continue to hone my writing skills as a way of adding more depth and meaning to my work. I have been so busy writing that I have actually forgotten how much a photograph allows me to say at the quick click of a button.
The click, of course, is the instant that ends months, in this instance; years, of scouting. I have gotten to know these trees incredibly well, and they have helped me to express and say a great deal without words over the past twelve months. It was here that I found refuge during a rather difficult period of my life towards the back end of 2022. The melancholic feel to the wintery landscape reflected my mood and emotions at the time, and my camera enabled me to express many of them, which brought a much needed cathartic release, and allowed me to lighten my load significantly.
Photography, as I have realised all the more over the past few years, possesses great power to transform. Not only has it brought me much closer to Mother Nature in recent years, but it has allowed me to release a lot of emotional baggage that I had been holding onto for much of my early life. The camera has been a tool for healing, and my spirit is grateful that it found its’ way into my life. The person that I am today differs greatly to the person that I was back at the beginning of this creative journey.
In a recent book that I read titled, ‘Art Heals’ by Shaun McNiff, the author writes about how artists are this worlds’ modern day shamans. I’m not going to start referring to myself as a shaman just yet but I can certainly see where he might be coming from, having observed many of the changes within myself over the past few years. The healing journey that I have been on has permanently adjusted my own energy, in the same way that shamans have been doing for millennia. Of course, I have a long way to go on this quest of mine before I can make such claims, but mornings like this always serve to remind me of just how far I have come in a relatively short period of time. The further that I walk along my way, the more I understand the purpose behind what it is that I am doing with the camera.
My own purpose for creating photographs differs to many. There are no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ reasons for creating, just as there are no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ ways to create. It just is that I have my own personal reasons, ones that I have spent a lot of money on ink to uncover, and I strongly believe in those reasons; a) for the benefit of myself, and b) for the greater benefit of the world as a whole. My ethos in recent times has been very much; ‘connection first, creativity second’. I believe that it is the time spent outdoors in, and my deepening connection with nature that has been the primary reason for much of my own healing and transformation. Creativity has, of course, been a vital component and has amplified my connection to Mother Nature and this planets’ life force; Gaia.
It is my belief that my own connection to nature that, strengthened over time, and with conscious thought directed to the energetic shifts inside of myself that are greatly influenced when aligned with the neutral energy that Mother Nature herself possesses, has led to a deeper connection with myself, and a greater sense of Self, as a result. By deepening my connection with and healing my relationship with myself, and allowing more room for empathy and understanding, I have developed a deeper level of self-love and self-acceptance. If I can allow this for myself, then I can allow this for other people, too. If my time in nature allows me this space to heal, then, from recent experience, I can carry this space forward to other people. It is my hope that, by embarking on this quest, I am able to succeed where my early caregivers failed, and make this world a better place by choosing a life of creation, instead of that of destruction.
With just the song of the birds for company, I roamed this area freely and with plenty of enthusiasm in search of something to create. It was to be a fruitful morning; the work that I have been putting in during many scouting trips in the Shropshire Hills since 2021 paid dividends, as I managed to create a handful of photographs that have plenty of life in them, and will live in my portfolio, telling a story for many years to come.
There was to be no magical light this morning, as I had hoped for whilst laying in bed just a few hours previously, but I was grateful for the thick fog that lingered and protected me and the silver birch trees from the outside world for a few hours, allowing me to forget the madness that exists out there in the ‘real world’ for a short while. The ‘real world’ to me, is the one right here amongst these wonderful trees. It seems crazy to think that this has become my escape.
I often liken a woodland on a foggy morning to the safety and security of the womb, and this morning certainly felt like that as I curled up like a foetus against one of the generous silver birch trees for my half an hour nap at 10am. It has been a testing year for me on a personal level, and I have been processing lots of change and clearing room inside of myself for even more growth. Mornings back in the womb like this always help to reset me, ground me, and allow me to find my centre after the inevitable periods of drifting that we experience as excessively creative people.
It had, up until this morning, been a short while since I created a photograph. It has been over nine months since I created a body of work as meaningful as this one. It is ironic that that body of work was created in exactly the same location last winter. Everything looked different back then, and the boot prints that I left for myself were invisible to me this morning. I lost my bearings on many occasions whilst trying to find them in hope of recreating some old compositions. Getting lost served as a reminder to me of how much has happened in my life in that time, and how much the land has changed. Or, perhaps it is me that has changed.
The past year or so has been joyful in many ways, in others it has been a real struggle. What I see from these photographs, and what I feel after a much needed morning outdoors in solitude, trudging through bog and knee-high bracken, with the sounds of the birds ringing out in my ears, receiving hugs from some of my favourite trees whilst I take a well-earnt nap, is hope. Hope that I am back on the right track. Hope that there is an abundance of creative energy boiling beneath my surface, getting ready to erupt. Hope, that I can be a man who makes some changes in this often dark world with this creativity that I’ve somehow channelled. Hope that there is always promise of light at the end of a dark tunnel.
