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

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!