Confessions of a Photographer

(Mindful Photography)

Thousands upon thousands of photographs sit huddled together on my hard drive, patiently waiting for their time to shine. I suppose I’m what you might call a collector. I collect light, moments, feelings. Digital photography has made it easier than ever for us all to become collectors in this way. I’m sure many of you reading this now will have a thousand or more photos stored on your phone. And I’m guessing many of these will be only slight variations of the images they’re nestled in between. There’s no judgement here. We are cut from the same cloth you and I.

Photography is my main creative outlet. It’s also the way I lose myself, escaping from the busyness of daily life. More than this, though, photography is my enabler. It enables me to hush the seemingly endless thoughts that rattle round in my head. Overthinking. Always analysing. Making plans. Creating multiple - often conflicting - to-do lists. Chastising myself for the many, many things I’ve forgotten to do. It’s exhausting. But when my camera is in my hands, and my outlook is limited to the scene in my viewfinder, I find a quiet stillness where time is momentarily paused.

When my camera is safely tucked away in my bag, it feels heavy. Sometimes the weight of it puts me off wanting to take it out. It’s easy to give in to those feelings. I have a camera on my phone after all. But phone photography doesn’t have the same impact on me as capturing images on my DSLR. It doesn’t produce quite the same calming tonic. And anyway, when my camera is in my hands it feels completely weightless. It becomes an extension of me. So much so that my fingers work the settings effortlessly and without thought. Finding familiar pathways that control the aperture, shutter speed or focal point, acting out unconscious instructions in the same way our lungs breathe and our eyelids blink.

There are times when I might collect two or maybe three hundred images while we’re enjoying the outdoors. Other times I might only capture a dozen or so frames. Increasingly I consciously choose to take fewer photographs, and very few - if any - slight variations. Partly this is because I go out with an idea of the image(s) I want to create, rather than simply firing the shutter at every little thing that catches my eye. And partly it is to avoid the inevitable feeling of overwhelm that comes with importing hundreds of photos into Lightroom and then having to cull the ones I don’t like. As a busy working mother, I have precious little time to spend selecting and editing photos. And so I have adapted my photographic practice to make more of the editing decisions in my head before I even think of raising the camera to my eye.

I can’t tell you how many thousands of RAW files sit on my hard drive waiting patiently to be selected for their time to shine. Often I do go through and flag the images I plan to revisit, but it’s rare for me to go back and edit them. It's far more likely for me to edit two or three images from each set and export them at various file sizes ready to share on social media platforms. But you can probably guess already that I struggle to share my images. It’s not that I’m hyper-critical of my work, or even that I’m fearful of what others might think of my photos. I guess it’s more a case of it being the act of crafting the images that is my tonic. My photography is for me. It’s my version of journaling. Not everything is for sharing.

Sometimes I question where that need to share comes from. Is it ego, seeking approval, pride, triumph, accomplishment, to inspire, to show off, educate or to delight? Perhaps a mixture of all of the above and more besides. Or something else entirely. Of course photographs are a way of preserving a moment in time. Capturing a feeling, an emotion, a connection, an event. Freezing in digital (or analogue) form that which is fleeting and ephemeral. I think that’s why I’m drawn to photographing nature, whether it’s flowers or the sea, that moment will never be the same again. Transient. Ever changing. It is the essence of life.

Slight imperfections are what make a photograph interesting. Well, at least to me. If you study the images above, for example, you’ll discover slight imperfections in each of the flowers. A misshapen petal on the daisy, a lavender spike missing a calyx, the hint of russet on hedge parsley. Details that might be missed by the casual observer enjoying a little time out in nature amongst the flowers. But these details tell a story. They allow us to connect with the natural world. Perfection is rare. Imperfection is life. Each of these flowers is now long dead, and yet they continue to live on and bring joy through photography. Perhaps that is the real virtue of sharing?

It is through the viewfinder that I find peace. It is also how I learned to truly see. As a photographer you notice transience: light, shadow, patterns, abstract detail, movement. Your eyes naturally seek out pleasing compositions, and jarring ones sometimes. It’s hard to explain the pull to create images with a camera. It’s all-consuming at times. And merely a whisper at others. That desire to make pictures is cyclical for me. I can go for months without picking up my camera, and then all of a sudden I cannot leave the house without it. That flurry of creativity is a signal that I need to slow down. To breathe. To see. To lose myself in the tiny rectangle that is my viewfinder. Seeing the world through a lens - a literal lens - is both meditative and therapeutic.

I began this essay describing the many thousands of photographs I have hiding away on my hard drive. Untouched. Not thought about. Forgotten. I’m sure I’m not alone in this. Maybe one day, when I no longer have strength enough left to lift my camera, I might go back to those photographs and relive the stories etched into each of them.

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With gratitude,