Lens-Artists Challenge #325: Gratitude

Lens-Artists Challenge #325: Gratitude

This week, Tina of Travels and Trifles is hosting the Challenge and her theme for the week is, 'Gratitude' (https://travelsandtrifles.wordpress.com/2024/11/16/lens-artists-challenge-325-gratitude/). 'Here in the U.S.,' says Tina, 'November is the month of our Thanksgiving holiday. It is noted as a time for family, for recognizing our many gifts, and .... for turkey! Gratitude, of course, should be practiced much more frequently. So today we’d like you to focus on those things for which you are most grateful.' 

This was not an easy subject to approach. Naturally, I'm grateful for the things I have, like a happy family,  a warm home and the little monsters — as my better half insists on calling my many vintage film and digital cameras — but as a European it's not always easy to express this and a traditional Thanksgiving day is a strange concept. So I thought I would take a slightly different approach. What if we incorporate a sense of gratitude into our photography?

Being grateful for being able to do what we want to do is not a new idea. Indeed, from my understanding the whole point of thanksgiving days were originally a celebration of gratitude for overcoming some traumatic communal event, or a celebration of a successful harvest. But from what I can gather 'Gratitude Photography' is a fairly recent approach. 

Back in 2014, the National Geographic published an article by Jared Gottleib entitled, 'The Art of Mindful Photography' (https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/mindful-photography-jonathan-foust). Gottleib asked himself whether, 'photography support[ed] awareness of my immediate experience, or detract[ed] from it' and interviewed a former photographer, Jonathan Foust, about mindfulness and how this impacted on his photography.

Gottleib identified several traits in the Mindful Photographer: 'heightening our awareness of seeing', by being a witness to experiences and events rather than trying to force them to happen as we want them to; embrace imperfection, by 'appreciating the photos that worked, rather than lamenting the ones that didn’t'; expect the unexpected — don't wait for the perfect photo opportunity to arise, just take it when you can; and to keep going, 'photography as a spiritual practice is an exploration conducted over a lifetime'.

All of these practices that Gottleib talks about were best distilled into three steps, Recognition, Acknowledgement, and Appreciation, as described by Richard Newman in a blog post for the Texas Photographic Society entitled 'Practicing Gratitude in Photography' (https://texasphoto.org/blog/2015/practicing-gratitude-in-photography). Newman asks us to recognise and 'understand how to work with what [we are] given', 'acknowledge the beauty or magic in front of [us] ... and appreciate what [we] have been given'.

Most of us probably practice Gratitude Photography without even realising it, when we take an image of a beautiful sunset or record our families laughing and playing, but it has been demonstrated that incorporating gratitude into our photography also increases our well being. In Psychology Today, Andy Tix in his paper, 'Taking Photos of the Good Increases Gratitude and Well-Being', (https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-pursuit-of-peace/202208/taking-photos-of-the-good-increases-gratitude-and-well-being%3famp) observed that, 'taking photos of the good increases positive emotions such as gratitude and overall life satisfaction. When these photos are shared with others, it tends to build connection. Other research shows that the task of taking photos increases engagement in the positive aspects of a situation. Furthermore, feeling grateful is tightly linked with overall happiness.'

By 'photos of the good' Tix was talking about 'being intentional about [taking and] sharing photos of the lovely and the meaningful ... turning our attention from what we don’t have to gratitude for what we do. In his example this was images of a location that was considered as boring. But it could also be considered as making photographs in a situation that was far from what was intended, or making the best of a bad thing. Perhaps the weather is not as you had expected, or you're unable to get to the location that you had wanted to visit, but wherever you are be grateful for what you have and use this to make your photography better.

But how can we use Gratitude Photography techniques in practice? In her blog Wild Willow Ways, Mary Farron outlines her approach (https://www.wildwillowways.com/post/how-can-we-harness-the-power-of-gratitude-through-photography) to mindful photography: 'I go to my chosen area and observe my surroundings, using my senses to really be in the place and in the moment, listening to sounds and becoming aware of any smells around me as well as taking in the visual environment. ... Seeing, hearing and sensing the beauty of nature produces moments of awe and wonder, ... It is in these moments, which are part of the mindful photography experience, that I feel gratitude for being alive and for all that life gives me.'

In her blog post, 'Integrating Gratitude Practices into Nature Photography' (https://smallscenes.com/blog/gratitude-practices-nature-photography) Sarah Marino makes mindfulness or gratitude an integral part of her photography technique. 'If a [subject] draws me in for a photo, it is simple to pause and express some gratitude for the moment ... A minute or two spent like this during each photography outing seems like a good way to extend the practice of taking photos to also include a form of gratitude.'

As mentioned before, many of us probably practice Gratitude Photography without even realising it, and some people have even suggested exercises to practise expressing gratitude in photography,  like using one camera and one lens for a particular period, or limiting oneself to taking one photo per day of something that represents gratitude for for us, or brings us joy. Jaime Kurtz, professor of psychology at James Madison University, says, (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/26/well/gratitude-photo.html) “Mindful photography is about slowing down ... It’s keeping an eye out for something that is beautiful or meaningful to you.”

Themes for the Lens-Artists Challenge are posted each Saturday at 12:00 noon EST (which is 4pm, GMT) and anyone who wants to take part can post their images during the week. If you want to know more about the Challenge, details can be found here (https://photobyjohnbo.com/about-lens-artists/), and entries can be found on the WordPress reader using the tag 'Lens-Artists'.

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