Intentional Photography As Medicine
Intentional Photography As Medicine??
What?!
That’s okay. I was planning to break this down so the idea digests as easily as possible.
First, the basics - Intentional:
adj. Done deliberately; intended: synonym: voluntary.
adj. Having to do with intention.
Done with intention, design, or purpose; intended; designed.
Photography: Photography is the art, application and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film.
Medicine: The science and art of diagnosing and treating disease or injury and maintaining health.
And now onto the meat of this idea. I feel like in some ways I have always been a “healer” in one way or another. Whether it was breaking up twigs and mashing leaves as a kid, or being the comic relief as an adolescent when my parents would fight, and into working with herbs and food to nourish friends and family and then into birth work, I have arrived at photography with an inclination to explore how that fits into my attraction to healing work.
Conscious creation of art, may sound like a large and grand idea, but it is simple.
Taking care and time to stop and preserve a moment for people is a gift of the human experience. Every year that I age my gratitude for photography deepens. As a mother holding pictures of my kids even blurry and imperfect, reminds me what I am here for when I am lost, that heals people. As a daughter holding photos of my mother & father and being able to refresh old lost nostalgia through the story of the photo, is healing. Seeing the world, and people, and life, through other peoples lenses that have consciously created something impactful, is healing.
Having things to hold in your hand, or see on the wall, or even find in your phone, connects us to our past and the moments that formed us.
Art has been used as a healing modality for a long, long time. I take time and give heart with my photography, just like I do as a doula, as a friend, and as a medicine maker. And that’s where it fits. Into the same space of leaving the world better than we found it, leaving others better than we found them, my intention is to have you leave your session more in love with yourself and your life, viewing yourself and your life as the masterpiece it is in that moment, you will order the prints and overflow books and boxes with them all around the house and someday you will sit in your favorite place, maybe with your favorite person, and pull those pictures out like a time machine. To rest into what you have created in your life and what you have done, seen, and been.
Remembrance is connection.
Take that picture, with a phone or a disposable or a tablet. Take it as a gift for that future version of you who wants to remember life in all of it’s layers of juicy goodness.
Take the photo however you need to, but know that when we work together, this is the point. I won’t schedule a mini session to squeeze your real life moments out of you guys in a hurry, watching the clock. I won’t overbook sessions that deplete me and are not my calling. I won’t surround you with props, and photoshop adjustments, because I need to take you back to a feeling, and if it is not authentic it is harder to feel it.
I will however create an experience for you to hold onto, something to leave you nourished, and reconnected to yourself and your life.
I believe in this stuff, I believe it works, and I do believe it a forgotten about method of healing.
