Sunday, 26 May 2013

The Trewoon Collection “Sharing the Spirit of the Sea”

free ebook pdf for PC – Android

Hello, I just wanted to say…… Jeanette & I are thrilled to be returning to our favourite coastal photography location again this June. Capturing the changing light and mood along the Cornish coastline has given us so much pleasure over the years, we just can’t wait for this next visit. When Nicola blogged news of the new beautiful interiors of “By the Seashore” I was inspired to finish a new collection of images taken while staying at Trewoon. We then decided to publish this collection in a book, ebook and screen saver set, so that we could share it with people who have different devices. The images images in the book and print gallery are a selection of our favourites taken from several trips, I hope you enjoy viewing them and reading the article in the book.

To Celebrate the books release we would love to share it with all of Nicola’s readers free through it’s first week of publication. You will find links for the eBook for Apple & ipad, PDF for Android & PC and a free screensaver at http:awayofseeing.org.uk/offers .

Some of you may know that I have written an art photography learning tool for children which I present along with some free Workshops to 10 – 11 yr olds, I find working with the potential of children so rewarding, they really Buzz, they are an inspiration. If you would like to support our efforts in this please visit the website above and check out what we love and how we do it. We also have a facebook page at http://facebook.com/awayofseeing if you would like to help us raise awareness.

Trewoon Twilight

We so enjoy our photographic trips to Poldhu Cove. We find the light in the cove has such an inspiring mix of warm and cool tones & that it varies constantly in depth and vibrancy, giving endless changing moods to capture. The way the tide can sometimes rush and other times wander up the shallow shelf of the Cove offers an artist several locations in one. We have often sat up in The Chocolate Box Cottage watching the light roll in wondering whether to pick up the cameras and wonder down through the gardens to capture some aspect of the cove’s wonderful light. This year we have added, new images to the collection, some black and white some colour and some from other locations we visited while staying at Poldhu Cove. Experimenting with lower light photography and longer exposures has widened our technique within seascape photography.

“Trewoon Twilight” one of my favourite prints was taken while working with Nicola in a short one to one workshop, I think the mood of the image grabs your attention it also, reminds me, of the rush back up the beach as we had decided to wait until after sunset, we needed to leave the beach before it became too dark. All great fun, creative with lungs filled with fresh coastal air & a camera full of images to work with.

Sea Tones

It is great to be able to share your love of creating images with others who appreciate the thrill of capturing something ethereal, it is a process that raises the spirits, it feeds the soul, while the uncertainty of what you really have in your camera only adds to mix. We also captured some great images like “Sea Tones” on a short workshop with John who was also a guest at Trewoon on our last visit, camera settings being our focus that eveneing. I really wanted to achieve an exposure that captures some of the movement of the tides front edge as it crept up the beach a step at a time while John wanted to practice with a much stronger stopping filter. Great times that I could repeat over and over….thank you guys….What more can you ask as a photographer.

Monday, 14 January 2013

Through Adversity

Continuing our exploration of how photography can directly effect our health and well-being I would like to come clean. I have suffered problems related to my physical & mental health on and off all my life. My earliest recollections of being "looked after" are being taken to the doctors regularly by my Mother, who I know understand to have been suffering problems including Münchhausen by proxy. My problems leaked out through Asthma, compulsive eating disorders as a child and depression from an early age.

I don't seek sympathy here, I just want to acknowledge my health problems, and through that, be able to express how much a creative hobby, pass time, career, job etc. helps build self esteem, get me out and about, achieve and therefore raise confidence generally or at times, as a respite or distraction, although I have learned all I know here through various experiences of "Occupational Therapy" I now talk specifically about Photography.

I have been lucky to experience long periods of reasonable health where I have worked for myself, which always gave the freedom to be away from work without suffering the stigma that regular time away causes in the work place. I have also worked with my camera in several ways over past decades, I have used my photography to run groups within MIND when training to be a Mental Health Nurse. I achieved my registration after 5 yrs in and out of training. I had to take some time out as stress became an issue while studying at university, working full time nursing placements and a divorce brought single parenthood all within one year, right in the middle of my training.

I have, what I now see are, great achievements being top student in faculty in the North West UK in technology and art. Developing a couple of my own small businesses working with design companies to bring there designs to life within interior design projects and more. As a nurse I worked as a Consultant Psychiatrists community liaison Nurse and developed one of the early community/in patient outreach services and have a portfolio that although full of huge holes where my health has collapsed, is full of reminders that I can achieve. I look back now an can see (after years spent seeing a Therapist) years of bi-polar illness which although have brought fear, elation, darkness and light, bankruptcy and worse have also brought me changes in direction that I would not made if my life had followed a more "normal" path.

Now retired from the NHS, I concentrate on my photography and to write about the experience of it...how it is A Way of Seeing for me and how I am sharing this love of the creative process with others. I have written an Art Photography Learning Tool for children and have worked with year 6 (10-11 yr olds) children in school groups volunteering to share how I experience photography. I am also planning after school clubs that will include parents and others while developing a one to one photography tuition programme.

I am very interested now in the affects taking photographs can have on us, how it can, in line with much research, help us to maintain a wellness, to bring about some satisfaction in what we do, while taking us to places of beauty with a purpose and that purpose gives us something to remember and help relive the beauty.

Wednesday, 2 January 2013

more people who "Capture the Positive" and feel good

While we put together further articles, we wanted to post tasters of the sort of things people are sharing with us. As I have said, I have a community health background and have been involved with creative rehab groups in all sorts of ways from strolling in the country side sort of “walking & Talking”, art groups, guitar groups (led by group users, I play all the right notes but not necessaries in the right order as Eric Morecambe so Wisely put it!) A Bowling group at MIND was great fun and users found it helped to distract from their often difficult lives and it helped us all trust a little more in relationships with others.

There is growing research that getting out and about, being creative and even just being around beautiful landscapes images can help with all sorts of things including improved health recovery outcomes, self esteem and confidence. Now concentrating on my Photography I am exploring the positive affects photography has on us. I feel that photography, in particular, is so well suited improving well being. Landscape photography in particular fills all the criteria that most research projects sight plus it helps us create something and to capture that creation, also it can help us build on skills that we can learn at our own pace.

Bobbie has just sent us this lovely shot

Bobbie says

“Hi there

Here’s my photo – me and my partner on a regular walk down our local canal. Walking is obviously good for us, but it’s also time to talk and taking the camera helps us notice all there is to see there.

Finding good things close to home.

Happy new year!

Bobbie”

I think Bobbie sums up in few words everything I would like to explore in a way. Getting out and about, feeling the fresh air on your skin, perhaps hearing the birds sing and capturing the experience with your camera all helping them feel good…helping them maintain their well-being. Well Happy New Year Bobbie and thank you so much for the posting!

Sunday, 30 December 2012

Wow! we have had such a positive response to our request for your short stories about how photography makes you feel good!

Tony from Kernow sent us this shot of his Son James holding the two week old Max...I'm sure you'll all agree that it is a great shot? Your welcome to leave us a comment about it.

Tony said :

"I am very much a happy snapper who takes a lot of mundane pictures and every so often capture an excellent moving image. The one I attach was taken in late august when our new puppy Max was 2 weeks old. My son was home for the weekend and I took him to see Max. The expression on his face is such pride.

I am a full time carer for my disabled young adult daughter so to me taking pictures is an escapism and a diversion to what can be a solitary existence. "

I am working to bring together more contributors for this blog so that we can explore more of how making moving images like this can lift our spirits. How exploring our environment and nature with our cameras can bring us such positive feelings.

Tony has a Flickr link you can visit if you like http://www.flickr.com/photos/tjkernow/

If you have an image that makes you feel good about your work, please let us know and tell us what it is about the image and the process of making it that "Captures the Positive" for you.

Send to capturethepositive@awayofseeing.org.uk

Friday, 28 December 2012

Welcome to "Capture the Positive"

Welcome to "Capture the Positive" I hope you find the following interesting whether you are a photographer by profession a happy snapper or perhaps you enjoy looking at images created by others. Through the use of articles and comment from photographers I have met along along my journey and experiences of my own I hope to explain and express how photography can make us feel. As a health professional I have been used to writing from an evidence base, I hope this blog will become less formal than that, but as I have found much health research from many quarters that supports what I am trying to say, I will quote some from time to time for reading if you want to click the links.

In my past, I have much experience of how "Occupational Therapies" ( I am not a lover of this term) can, if carefully tailored, be of great value to clients (not a lover of this term either!) well-being when people have experienced illness.I now believe very strongly that approaching photography in a therapeutic way helps us stay well, feel good about ourselves and "Capture the Positive" of life and beauty around us. Whether that beauty is found in a landscape, seascape, flower, insect, building, photogenic model or other subject that inspires, capturing this, I think, allows us to re-experience, a double take, a double whammy!

I have already asked several photographers for their thoughts and have been very moved by their responses, I hope to include these personal reflections in the following posts and invite you to send me posts that express what positive feelings and experiences photography has given you. If you would like contribute, please email me at capturethepositive@awayofseeing.org.uk with your message, a link to your work or send me an image you have enjoyed creating and let everyone know how that made you feel!