Finding therapy in photography
Early Days
I started my photography journey 12 years ago, I remember that first time my dad had let me pick up a camera and start shooting; it was a Canon EOS 450D. I used to think, at such a young age what a privilege it was to be able to use a ‘professional’ camera.
In school, I had pretty extreme social anxiety. I constantly felt on edge and that I needed to be in the eye of an adult over fears of peers abusing me, being bullied played it’s toll on me, so I never really went out… I avoided every opportunity possible. I would leave for school 30-60 minutes before my peers so as to avoid crowds, for lunch I had a pass to avoid lines, and leaving school I got to leave 5 minutes prior to everyone else. I only had one trusted friend in school and she was absolutely fantastic, but when she would invite me out, I would come up with an excuse as to why I couldn’t. I couldn’t really tell her my anxiety was taking over my life, because at the time I didn’t really understand it. I’d get home and I would go on my computer.
It was around the age of 13 I began experimenting with photoshop and Masks, putting my face into TV screens and just having a general play about, masks, overlays, etc, I never really knew what I was doing but I’d play with it anyway, and when it came to editing my go to was always Saturation and Contrast, anyway, we can pretend that never happened, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, so when I was editing 80 images in 2 hours and dad wondered how, yeah, that’s it. Not really much art to it, oh, and I’d shoot JPEG. But this is the important bit, I was experimenting, and I was constantly learning myself new things. With the 450D I’d mainly take pictures of flowers, nature, a few selfies, my mums Dachshunds Pepsi & Treacle, but it was all pretty generic stuff.
As time progressed, so did I, and I began learning more and more including using brushes to manipulate images, I ended up making many images incredibly soft. It was all trial and error. That’s the beautiful thing about photography is there is always something to learn, from composing an image to post processing an image, the world is your oyster even with editing, there generally isn’t a right or wrong way of doing something.
Confidence Boost
As time progressed and I began learning more and more with photography, the camera was coming absolutely everywhere with me, school trip to Italy, trip to the Isle Of Man, days out, walks in the park, holidays, everywhere I went the camera would be attached to my hip, even my brothers own wedding which, I must admit, the editing wasn’t quite on par with todays standard, pretty… poor I guess, but that’s okay, Rome wasn’t built in a day, right? I was gaining a joy from it and my confidence with it was getting better, particularly as I began getting compliments on my images. It really made me feel good about myself, and so I would continue.
I decided to study a Level 3 Creative Media Diploma, by now I was getting more and more confidence in going out with the camera and learning skills and progressing on photoshop, and learning to mask things in the background such as distractions, and I was gradually getting more confidence with my flow of things. I sort of took a bit of a step back by my second year of college as I began focusing more on my social life and relationships and that part of my mental development that I had never really been able to explore, but every time I got the camera out, I couldn’t wait to get home to edit images and I was really starting to learn a lot more about highlights and shadows and the exposure triangle.
Whilst in college though, I did find my anxiety deepen and then I was diagnosed with Anxiety and Depression, I still had the social anxiety but it was easing.
Uni Days
I managed to make it to University to study Digital Film & Post Production Technology as with photography, I really wanted to get into moving images, I thought video was going to be my niche and where I would end up in life but as time progressed I gradually got myself more and more into photography, particularly in the last year of university again, I gained a comfort from it. I still hoped that I would have a future in videography but I seemed to have lacked much of the drive as I found most of my issues become consumed by my mental health and therefore was losing touch of what I really wanted to do in life and in University just got on with doing what needed to be done.
Thankfully I managed to leave university with a Second Class First Division (With Honours) in Digital Film & Post Production Technology, and I got to do some work experience on Peaky Blinders Season 5 which was one of the most incredible experiences of my life, I spent much of my time watching the videographers as they would compose scenes for the recording, how they would Angle, where they would get, and how they would action the shots, many scenes were repeated 4/5 times to get different angles and to get things perfect, sometimes things would be repeated more than that, but it was all about getting it perfect.
A few months later, I decided to get back into doing Photography and as I lived near a zoo I decided that I wanted to start going there and taking pictures as it was practically on my doorstep, so I began going to the zoo multiple times a week, sometimes up to 3 times, getting thousands upon thousands of images and I absolutely enjoyed coming home to edit. I would sit there for hours editing, it was my happy place. Go to the Zoo, come home, edit, repeat. I began downloading different software and by now I was experimenting with LUT’s and filters to see how I could individually manipulate an image, how I could bring certain details out, how I could work on the subject to make it my main focus. I then began doing so much research into Camera’s, Lenses, and so on, and I ended up investing thousands into it once I started my full time job, I couldn’t wait for my rest days to go to work, come home, and edit. It was a constant, and I found peace in it.
Post University Life
Life began remaining as a constant, it was stable, and all I was doing was developing my skills and knowledge and sticking to a subject, I found out that actually I don’t get as much joy from photographing nature as I do animals. People began approaching me more and more complimenting my work and people were noticing me, and it was making me gain some confidence about my work and I just wanted to keep experimenting with editing techniques more and more.
As time went on I decided to continue to put into my hobby and make it a business, this is when I decided I wanted to get into photographing Pets because I absolutely love animals and spending my life growing up around them I just knew that somehow, one day, I really wanted to work with animals and I couldn’t quite do the gory bits of being a Vet, so I knew photographing them would be perfect, as I get to spend time with pets and also do a hobby I love which is photographing, and in a Pet loving society, I know people now more than ever put more money and care into their pets than ever and more people are willing to have beautiful images as memories of their pets as Images last a lifetime, and are a constant reminder of our fur babies.
Animal Planet then posted my image, and not too long after I was approach by MPB who wanted to do an Article on my photography and my experience from purchasing from them as they are a fantastic Third party supplier and I figured why go brand new when you can go second hand for cheaper and still keep the quality, they then published my article and not long after I ended up having a significant drop in my Mental Health. Despite the fact I love doing photography my Mental Decline was from external factors I needed to address, and every time I do photography I gain an enjoyment like no other from editing images of peoples pets, as I found that when I was in the zone to edit that I thoroughly enjoyed it and I was actually spending more time on images to perfect them. The hyperfocus that editing gives me is one like no other.
Photography gave me many opportunities that have really brought me out of my shell and put me in many challenges that I thoroughly enjoy and I have learnt that there is always something to learn and that no two photographers are the same. We all have our styles and individual ways of doing things and I think it’s vital as a photographer to find what you love instead of trying to do what others do because the more you try to be like someone else, the less you are allowing yourself to grow and learn your own style naturally.
Tutorials are a brilliant tool to learn techniques as are magazines, I have learnt most of what I know from these resources, but I never edit two images the same as each image has it’s own individual sets of lighting, composition, and background, colours, and pets so each image is edited individual to how I prefer the animal to look, but I do create presets to go by when I like a specific style of image - such as the Bluebells below - as some consistency can also be useful!
I strongly encourage that anyone who has any sort of mental health issues to definitely look into creative ideas, I found photography helps me so much and I feel if I didn’t do photography I would probably be in a much worse off, darker place than I am in now as I have found a unique, fun joy from it like no other.
