Photography & Mental Health

Mental health is difficult to talk about because it’s not a one size fits all topic. Therefore the solutions that one might need to address any struggles are also different. However in this blog, I would like to make the connection between not feeling 100% and photography. Before I can explain how I feel the two are connected, let me share a story specifically how this impacted me personally.

So let’s rewind back a few years and start from the beginning. I was in my mid 20s, lived in the midlands and had a very cool job testing cars all around the world. I also had a pretty cool business that I ran with my friends importing and selling Japanese sports cars. I was young, had enough disposable income, travelled the world and all was good. However within a matter of a year or so, I changed jobs in order to “climb the career ladder” and quickly found myself stuck behind excel spreadsheets all day working on the most boring things known to man. My car business fell apart and landed me with over 5 figures worth of debt. Another business venture failed landing me with over 15 grands worth of credit card debt. My relationship broke down and I moved back in with my parents. I then found myself at 27 in a ton of debt, in a job I hated, no savings, two failed businesses and a failed relationship. Also extremely out of shape. Not only that but I lost my identity. I lost the identity of a somewhat successful and happy guy in his mid 20s and instead became this out of shape debt ridden guy in a dead end job.

Now I wouldn’t say I was ever depressed but I was certainly very very down. The usual symptoms like bad mood, inability to socialise, waking up dreading each day and just wasting time waiting for 5pm so I can log off and go waste the rest of my day in another room with a tub of ice cream, a pizza and Netflix. Now fast forward a couple months of this miserable existence and I somehow stumbled across photography on YouTube and just went down the rabbit hole. Back then i would watch the likes of Thomas Heaton and Joe Allan and think to myself, oh man these lads are living the life. I still had my little Canon M5 from all my travels in my previous career so I decided rather than feeling sorry for myself, I’m gonna go for a walk round London and see what photos I can get. Also I was a little fat so I needed the exercise.

As I started walking round, I found myself almost switching off from my daily negative thought patterns and instead just observing the world around me and simply being in the moment. Whenever I was looking for compositions I wasn’t thinking about how unfair life has been to me or why did that person say that to me or any of that nonsense. I was simply looking for compositions, shapes, subjects and light. Overtime this process of just going out to shoot became addictive. I found myself getting frustrated if I haven’t been out to shoot at least once or twice a week. In the end you could say the process of going out to photograph became the very therapy I needed to escape any negative mental states and thought patterns.

Fast forward to today and although I am now in a very privileged position where I have cleared all my debts and built savings, got into the best shape of my life, the best mental space of my life and make more money than any job I’ve had from doing something I love, I still turn to my therapy so to speak whenever I feel tired or in need of a break. To this day if I spent 5 days in a row working on YouTube videos or the business side of all this, I still feel frustrated and suffocated. The only real escape is to grab my camera, some headphones and head out for the day. By the time I come home, my head is clear, my energy is back and Ive done some slow state cardio. Not to mention the SD card full of photos. Also not to mention all the food and drink from the day out

So what is the point of all this? Well I honestly do think that there is a correlation between going out with a camera alone to shoot and overcoming any mental struggles you might be facing. Sure it might not work for everyone, but it worked for me. So if you are going through some difficult times, maybe give this a go and who knows where it will take you. I certainly wouldn’t be sitting here if I turned to another form of therapy or even worse self medication instead of picking up my old camera.