Photography encourages us to pause, pay attention, and see the world differently. In this personal reflection, Karen Morecroft shares how photography has helped her connect with nature, embrace creativity, and build lasting friendships through a shared hobby.
Photography encourages us to pause, pay attention, and see the world differently. In this personal reflection, Karen Morecroft shares how photography has helped her connect with nature, embrace creativity, and build lasting friendships through a shared hobby.
Photography is a part of my wellbeing for numerous reasons - not just that it's something I enjoy and find equally relaxing and challenging. I love that it makes me get out in nature - I find it hard to stay indoors on a weekend, unless the weather is absolutely awful. I can often be found in the community woodland at Cutteslowe park, having a wander with my camera, focusing on the way the light hits the trees, or trying to spot the birds I can hear. Where I used to live [Salford] before I moved to Oxford, I was taunted by a woodpecker I could hear tapping away in the local trees every day as I walked to work - it took close to a year to finally get a good shot of it…
I love to create photographic collections of things, abandoned chairs is a favourite - nothing like the joy of finding an office chair in the wild, or another favourite is space invaders, mostly small mosaic pieces of street art installed in cities around the world by the artist ‘Invader’, my last batch collected on a trip to Paris. Or sometimes just the fun of choosing to restrict your choices to ‘only that colour’ or a particular focal length can be equal parts frustrating and exciting.
I also like the slowness that can come with analogue photography. I often carry a 35mm film camera with me and love the excitement of seeing the processed negatives for the first time, often months after I started a roll of film - sometimes I’ve even forgotten what was on them! Even my instant film camera isn't quite so instant any more, making me wait several minutes to find out if the shot was successful or not and when each shot can easily cost a pound or more, and I have a finite amount in my pocket, it makes me more intentional about what to take photos of.
Another key aspect to my wellbeing comes from the various communities that I’ve found through photography, most of which were found when I joined the photo-sharing site Flickr just over 20 years ago. One of my favourite events is the twice yearly ‘Roid Week' (short for Polaroid but all instant film photography is included), where for 6 days in both Spring and Autumn, you can upload to the group pool only 2 new instant photos to the group, it's always a fantastic range of images from around the world and really inspiring. I’m also a member of the Oxford Flickr group, and we organise monthly meet-ups for photowalks during the summer months (in winter we just meet in the pub for a chat), organise exhibitions, and take trips out to see photography shows.