I recently read an article about photography helping a person to overcome depression and anxiety, enabling him to see the beauty and positivity in his local area.
The article really chimed with me as I have always recognised the great benefit of photography as a mindful activity.
Capturing the local environment with the camera allows me to stay very much in the moment, unencumbered by the everyday stresses that impact on us all. In this way, regardless of ones own mental health, photography can be uplifting - even if it is only for ten minutes, or so, at any one time.
Importantly though, mindful photography requires a certain attitude to the results. It fails if there is an over emphasis on taking ‘great photos’. Anxiety can creep in if every click of the shutter is critically assessed at the capture stage.
The solution, of course, it to relax. Accept what is in front of you and enjoy the activity. Ultimately, the results will take care of themselves.
For example, a walk up to the lime tree avenue on the Hexgreave Estate stays with me because I enjoyed spotting the early signs of the autumn season in hedgerows and trees. The results in this case are secondary but now, after the event, I can reflect on one image that I particularly like. This image is the flowering ivy hedge, trimmed very neatly by the Estate - a simple composition that is all about the line and textures of the hedge:
These are some of the other results from the walk including one unusual looking bilberry climbing a utility pole, and perhaps doing a good impression of a decorated Christmas tree?
The final destination for the walk was the lime tree avenue on the Estate which was showing a few hints of autumn colour. I use this line of trees to gauge the timing for a visit the much larger lime tree avenue in Clumber Park with the best colour tending to be around mid to late October:
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