My first memory of picking up a camera is when I was a young child, maybe about 7 or 8 years old, in the scorching Spanish heat during a family holiday to Valencia. We were visiting the zoo for the first time, and I was about as excited as you can imagine a child could be. Protected from the harsh sunshine by my grey bucket hat and ‘too cool for school’ sunglasses, I bounced from enclosure to enclosure. From giraffes to chimpanzees, lions to rhinos, one thing remained consistent – I had a camera in my hand. Granted, it wasn’t a great one, a small point and shoot digital camera at a time when a single megapixel felt professional, but it did the trick. All I wanted to do was to get pictures of all the animals, to make the most of the camera, and if anyone tried to take the camera off me, I would throw a tantrum – it’s the reason we always ended up taking two cameras on holiday! To this day, I get that same excitement whenever I have my camera strapped around my neck or slung over my shoulder – it’s one of the best feelings in the world.
Photography left my life for a while during school, and it wasn’t until the latter half of sixth form that I turned back to cameras. I’m not sure what brought me back, but a sudden impulse one day led me to mpb.com, a website for second-hand cameras (and lenses) that has since become my haven, browsing through a range of various cameras. The details made no sense to me – how many megapixels do I need? What does APS-C mean? Since when were lenses detachable? I was lost but found my way to a small camera and lens set. Since then I have slowly worked my way up, and still to this day I keep finding myself browsing that website for what could possibly be next to my collection. My wallet usually disagrees.
It can be hard to sum up the benefits of photography in words, especially wildlife photography where I find that simply doing is the best explanation. Being quite introverted, I find the feeling of being alone in a hide, waiting patiently for a bird to drop by, to be incomparable to anything else in the world. Whenever I head home to Cardiff, I always hope that there will be time for me to head over to the local canal with my camera, even if only for an hour or two.
My family have noted how patient I have become when out photographing wildlife. Hours could pass by and I would be blissfully unaware, my mind lost in the whispers of the wind through the reedbeds, or the distant chirps of birds. That may well be the greatest benefit, the peacefulness that comes with waiting for the perfect shot. Your mind empties as you frame your subject and is filled with the soothing sounds of nature. It’s as if you are meditating – a mental spa with the reward of seeing your photographs at the end.
I have found benefits in all types of photography: I have dabbled in portraits, and more recently sports and macro photography. All have their own perks – portraits and sports photography help you meet some wonderful people, and macro photography opens a whole new world that is unseen to the human eye. The one thing they share is that they all benefit you mentally, they get you doing something and help focus your mind on one thing – and away from whatever may be troubling you. I like to see it not only as an escape, but as a mental health reset too.
You may be reading this and thinking that this is only possible with a high spec camera body and a big, clunky lens – but you would be wrong. This is all achievable for very little, or even no cost at all. Photography is not exclusive to people with expensive gear! Nowadays, everyone is carrying a camera with them in the form of a mobile phone, and this is all you need to get yourself outside and shooting. Those smartphone cameras are FAR superior to the little camera that young me was holding in the zoo in Valencia, and that means that the potential for joy is there too. Find something you enjoy, and simply start taking photos – whether that be pictures of your family, your pets, or even your food! There are no rules for you to follow, it is a way to express yourself as freely as possible. You won’t always get a great picture, it’s a common occurrence for all photographers to come home and find that hours of work have yielded no results, BUT it is not time wasted. The time was spent not only practicing photography skills, but also spent benefitting yourself, getting up and about. You will be amazed at how many pictures you end up taking in a short amount of time! Just recently I took over 1200 pictures during a trip to Berlin, without even realising!
Photography has been an outlet for me. It has helped me reset my mind and relax when the world around me felt chaotic. Sitting in the evening sun, soothing my mind with the gentle sounds of nature is a feeling that I consider unbeatable, and photography has given me a reason to go out and experience that feeling far more than I ever would have imagined. On days where thoughts and stress are playing havoc with your mind, the ability to get up, go outside, and sit there is invaluable. My mother has always said that the hide at the canal is one of her favourite places in Cardiff, and I would agree with her. In that small wooden hut, life becomes ethereal. Time is not an object – it is just you, nature, and a camera.
You can see more of my pictures on my website.