Digital Photography and Wellbeing
Green Therapy
Looking down the list of topics that I’m writing about in respect of my digital photography (and the ones I have planned for the section on fine art photography) one thing is becoming increasingly apparent – very few are explicitly about photography, art or creativity. Instead I’m writing about confidence, certainty, belonging, sense of place and learning; and later (in the section on fine art photography) I’ll be adding individuality, self-expression, having a voice, flow and freedom.
It’s clear that photography also helps soothe my anxiety; widens my comfort zone; provides structure when I need it; a sense of achievement, satisfaction, pleasure and enjoyment. Many of the locations I shoot at afford the benefits of green therapy. And I’m more aware of birds in our garden, the parks and the nature reserves – is that a simple form of bird therapy?
I don’t know what the strict definitions are in a clinical sense, of Therapeutic Photography and Art Therapy, but it feels as if my photography is making a significant contribution to help me in these ways because it has a very positive effect on my wellbeing.
I've also benefitted further by writing about these gains in this project and making them explicit. And that, in turn, has encouraged me to enrol on a short course of Mindful Photography in October.
That’s what digital photography can do for me.
#Art for Recovery