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I don’t know about you, but where I live we are deep in the middle of the grey and rainy winter.
While I adore where I live, this part of the year gets tough.
When the days are so short and there is so little light to soak in during the day. Thankfully we’ve had a bit of sun here and there, but still…I feel like self-care is so pivotal right now and it’s been on my mind so much more.
Which is a big part of why I wanted to bring back the Self-Care Class this season. I’ll be sharing more about my own self-care tools with the class participants but one of my favourite tools is going for photo walks.
In the spring time I like to make a practice of going out for a photo walk in the last hour of the day as the sun starts to fall away. A few weeks ago when I realized that it was starting to get dark at around 4pm I decided that as many days as possible I was going to pause from my work (I usually work at home in the afternoons) and get out for a short photo walk at around 3pm.
Some days, especially when it’s raining, it has been as short as walking the half block to the alley way, to the path around my house and back. Which takes a total of about 2 minutes max.
Other days I’ll go a few blocks and sometimes even further.
Somedays I’ll come home with photos to post and other days I don’t. Cause to me photo walks aren’t just about getting photos. They are about making space to slow down, to notice, to feel engaged with the natural and human world. In this case I notice what light we do have as it is about to fall away. Even if there aren’t the rays of light that fall in the spring. Even if it is raining.
Because to tell you the truth. I didn’t fall in love with photography on a sunny day. It was a grey day when I jumped in a puddle and decided to try to take a photo of it with my new (now old school) flip phone with the super crappy camera and that moment when I felt myself fall in love with the potential to capture a moment.
It wasn’t the gorgeously radiant days only that helped this become a healing tool for me. It was a multitude of rainy days when I’d go out when the rain paused with my macro lens to capture the water droplets.
And while I sure do love a radiant sunny day for capturing a self-portrait, largely because of the way it enriches the story…the light isn’t the only thing that makes a photo shine. It is gifting ourselves with the space to tell our story. It is us that shines too.
So while I’m feeling that overwhelm of this season with so much less light, it’s the time that I need to come back to tools I’ve been using this whole time. It’s about opening my heart again and again to the ways that the camera can be self-care and how even these short photo walks fill my well.
If you’re interested in digging deeper into self-care this season and and want to know more about the Self-Care class, head on over here!