Reflection: Mindful Photography as a wellness tool

Thank you to one of our Champions for sharing this information about one of her wellness tools. If you are interested in being part of a group or hearing more about this approach please get in touch and we will so our best to coordinate and support you.

Mindfulness is a way of keeping yourself in the present moment.  Mindful photography is something I discovered by chance. I was running out of views to take pictures of in Fochabers.  So I started looking for smaller things to photograph.  I started with the wonderful roses in a nearby garden.  Taking shots of them as buds, then full blown, and even as they were fading.  From there I moved on to other flowers, berries and nuts on trees and those fallen on the ground.  And leaves – have you ever really noticed how many different shapes and sizes there are; and how many shades of green, gold and red there are?  You start to notice the little things more and as you are doing so your mind stops wandering to what happened yesterday or what might happen tomorrow.  It keeps you living in the moment.  As you are walking look up at how the leaves and branches appear against the sky.  Look down and left and right and really notice what is around you, plants growing in seemingly impossible places in walls; moss growing on trees and walls, leaves and flowers finding their way through fences.  In autumn and winter see how the low sun changes the light and shadows through the trees.  And the next time you see moss on top of a wall, stop and take a closer look.  Through a camera lens it looks like a landscape of hills and valleys with tiny trees and flowers and fungi

If you want some inspiration to get started you could have a look for one of the photo challenge websites.  A friend did this as a way of giving herself a reason to get out of the house each day.  They simply give you a photographic theme for each day.  It could be a single word or a phrase and you just go out and find something that fits the theme with you.  This is one month’s example:

You don’t need expensive kit to do this either.  My friend mentioned above uses her mobile phone to capture the most wonderful photographs.  I use a simple point and shoot digital camera.

“a Camera IS Mindfulness. Photographers who practice mindfulness sometimes say that simply holding a camera can induce this state of awareness. It is a kind of conditioning effect: your mind associates doing photography with mindfulness. I might add that when we are mindfully aware of our surroundings, we are doing photography, even if we don’t have a camera with us.”  John Suler  http://truecenterpublishing.com/photopsy/mindfulness.htm