Therapeutic photography has been more then an art form to me it’s been therapy and it’s been whole heartedly a life line.
I truly believe it has played a key role in saving my life, art has saved my life.
Through therapeutic photography not only have I been able to learn a new amazing and fulfilling skill that is non stop but it’s been a path to healing I had never realized was an option.
When I first started my mental health was very bad it was very scary and very lonely.
Photography is special because I can see it in the portraits they all tell a story, there’s a piece of my diary in each one or you could say they are the diary.
I don’t know what made me pick up the camera or what gave me the idea that first time but I won’t forget that day.
I just picked the camera up at 6 am one cold September morning because I was done, fed up with feeling how I was and I needed something to get my mind focused. I wanted to make something beautiful.
I had no idea the path it was going to take me on. It’s been an outlet, it’s a way of life to create anything I want anything I imagine and that’s usually turning pain into something beautiful. I try very hard to take the feelings and turn them into something, I try to think how can I put this emotion into a photo or just end up thinking of my best ideas and themes when I’m overwhelmed or full of anxiety and panic, sadness, anger or right after those feelings have passed. I’m very grateful to have this ability now as growing up art has always been apart of my life in some form but this has allowed some of the most soul-fulfilling work ever. That’s what is truly amazing about therapeutic photography it is a healing art form. It has opened new doors and new pathways in the mind, coping skills, understanding, releasing and evolving with mental health. I find it to be very mindful as your doing mindful practices daily when you’re looking at nature in a new way, shadows, light, everything can be seen in a different way.
The most incredible and inspiring people I know that express themselves in this way live with mental illness.
Therapeutic Photography I believe can and is playing a very important lead role in how mental health can be helped it has the power to change the world, it is changing the world because it sure changed mine.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words… I take all my anxiety, pain, sadness, anger and fear and I turn it into something beautiful. I will forever turn my mental illness into something beautiful because I refuse to see it as something ugly.
— Trena Pearl Wall
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