Reflection in Nature | with Therapeutic Photography in Mind
On reflection, we’re making some really great strides forward on our project. Our pilot group of volunteers now meets weekly every Friday morning – enjoying our beautiful Staffordshire landscapes – testing out all activities that Human-Nature will be rolling out to participants over the coming weeks and months. Our volunteer group are mix of people with professional experience in the therapy and caring professions, and some have first hand knowledge of the issues often faced with common emotional wellbeing issues like stress, depression and anxiety. Who better then to trial our activities and services – and perfect them ready to introduce new participants – those wanting to use our services to sustain recovery and maintain their own health resilience?
Our latest session on 7th October saw us take a ‘Therapeutic Photography’ walk through the footpath crossing Trentham Golf Course, and out towards Hanchurch pools.
Equipped with the CIC’s new digital camera (Olympus TG-4 Tough adventure camera), we thought we test it out and gave it to Steph to try. We wanted to see if it’s a suitable camera to use for our group work for our mindful photography, so that we might acquire more if it’s the one for us. We think it’s a good camera, simple enough to use, great macro close-up capabilities, plus added features like GPS location photo stamping, sound recording and WiFi for instant on location photo share between the group. This will allow us to immediately view and share photos, whilst out in the landscape, on a larger screen device like an iPad.
Mindful Photography | slowing down to ‘take notice’
On the photography front, it’s quite surprising how just slowing down and being more observant of your surroundings, how ‘taking notice’ can focus the mind, and bring you very much into the present moment – enjoying the here and now. Searching for the next photo opportunity and finding beauty in the minutest detail, with close up and even macro shots, can be so rewarding. It’s not just the beautiful sights to appreciate, but the sounds too – the birdsong and the rush of the waterfall and the trickle of the streams – they all add to the experience and somehow help to convey a sense of improved wellbeing. Nature seems to have that knack.
Of course the walk and exercise are good too, not only for physical health, but the mental wellbeing benefits that exercise brings. Plus the photography is ‘social’, with lots of discussion, learning from each other, and plenty of banter as we checked out each other’s images as we walked.
Within this post and the photos we took on that day, we’ve tried to capture the ‘human’ element of our work – it’s just not all about nature, it’s about our human interaction with nature – it is Human-Nature after all!
Of course we’re only a bunch of amateur photographers, but hopefully it just shows how a group of people can quite easily convey their artistic talent, just through a short walk, with a few digital cameras. If you care to look at what’s around, it can help to inspire you, and makes it easy to ‘be creative’.
And sometimes even man-made structures can look beautiful, if you know how to ‘look’. Just see how below, Stephanie’s captured the light and angles under the M6 bridge, as commercial and commuters thundered busily by on the motorway bridge above!
Even the nearby horses were getting some therapy – rescue horses Caspa and Wispa enjoyed all the attention – and check out that moustache!
We spent quite a while trying to get this last shot of the horse’s blue eyes – and long eyelashes, the kind lashes a lady might die for. But check out this photo image – and look a little closer. You can see my reflection in his eye – me, in my blue top holding up the camera.
That’s the beauty of digital photography nowadays – you can instantly check and share the appreciation of your images, as well as taking something positive away to review, share and reflect on – perhaps collating the images into common themes, patterns and colours and gaining pleasure in naming them with a title, something personally meaningful to us as individuals.
Reflecting Nature | photography on our wavelength
Apart from our own Photo Walk, we’ve had a really interesting week on the ‘therapeutic photography’ front. Tuesday 4th October saw the opening of ‘Reflecting Nature’ (also known as the ‘Wavelength’ project) opening its doors at Staffordhire University on its tour of the UK. It’s both an ‘art’ and ‘science’ project exploring (and proving) the positive wellbeing and mood benefits brought about by scenes, sights and sounds from nature.
Images from the Reflecting Nature and Wavelength project (Mark Ware and Dr Nicola Street)
Psychology Lecturer Dr Nicola Street at the university has linked in with professional artist Mark Wark, using his nature photography images, which he has reflected into patterns with various lines of symmetry. They are analysing human responses to these photos, helping to prove the positive mood benefits nature and art can bring. They’re also exploring what words spring to mind when viewing these images, to explore whether there’s commonality in how different people perceive nature images, and what thoughts and feeling these might evoke.
We’re hoping that Mark and Nikki’s team at Staffs Uni take an interest in the Human-Nature project, because in a way they are putting the science behind what we ourselves are delivering in practice – the human health benefits to participants, through connection with art and nature.
Get down to Staffs Uni and catch the exhibition if you can.