Natures’ Great Initiation

‘Enlightened’ - A photograph by Brad Carr.

This wilderness has saved me. I came out here just a boy; struggling with identity and lacking in purpose and direction. The men in my early life had abandoned me and I learnt not to place too much trust in men anymore. A world ruled by men in my child's mind was a scary place to be. As a result, I learnt to place the utmost amount of trust in myself from a young age.

For the most part, I matured quickly in the absence of a reliable and consistent father figure in my life, but there were (and still are) many parts of me that were immature and under-developed. The masculine half of my psyche, in parts, was still trapped in my childhood somewhere. I learnt very early that to be a man was dangerous. Men were volatile, full of anger, and would quickly erupt into a fit of rage without too much in the way of provocation.

If it wasn’t for my interactions with Nature at a precious stage of my life, and my discovery of long-forgotten wild places that have helped me to reconnect with my own wild man within, I believe that I would still be frozen in the immature boy psyche; afraid to step up, face the real world, and take responsibility for my own life, and ready to run whenever things became too much of a challenge.

Nature, for half a decade now, has kept me grounded, and just like the trees, my roots are reaching deep into the earth. I have little desire to run away any more, because I know where it is that I belong. I have learnt to stand strong and face any challenges head on with bravery and courage. I had no idea when I began this long journey inwards, just how important these interactions would become as I danced between the threshold of my boy/ man psyche.

In a culture so devoid of initiation for young men, unless you count the crude and repulsive tasks that are encouraged by sports clubs that so often include drinking obscene amounts of alcohol or engaging in shaming acts in public, it is no wonder that we have so many men struggling with direction and structure in their life; turning to addictions as a way of coping with their problems instead of understanding and working through them before it is too late, and the pressures of life become unbearable.

I found my own form of initiation through my adventures into the wilderness, and creativity quickly became my only addiction. This voyage into my own soul has forced me to face the most frightening of demons as I have opened up the darkest corners of my heart and revealed many of the stories that I once kept hidden from the world. As I have explored the landscape alone for the past few years, I have been forced to face many of the real world fears that await a young man, too.

Solitude, as it happens, has never scared me too much from what I remember. I am privileged in so many ways to have always been a great lover of it, so it didn’t take long for me to find my peace and place out in the wilderness. Despite my early adversities and struggles, I guess I had something of a head start in life in that sense, having grown to love my own company from an early age.

Having observed and studied my own development over the past few years through my journaling practices and essay writing, I can now understand why Nature plays such an important role in all mythical and religious stories of the past; why trees often contain spirits and the voice of God can be heard when a man walks into the wilderness and distances himself from the judgment and rules of society.

It takes for us to walk a while before the noise of the thinking mind silences and we can hear those feint whispers of truth from the depths of our own soul. This voice of truth has become my best friend, and it is vital that I make time to listen to it so that I can keep on sailing toward the port that I initially set out for.

I found a sense of belonging in my solitude, and now that is all that I find myself longing for in life. As I sit and write this, I am aware of the current distance between myself and the natural world. Sadly, life has a tendency of getting in the way sometimes, and pulls us away from where it is that we belong. Survival, at one point in time, meant scouring the landscape for food and shelter. Now it depends on our capability to scour and utilise the digital landscape of the Internet. I have found some peace in that, but it doesn’t mean that it makes my sadness any more bearable and my longing for the wild places any less intense.

I live in hope that the sacrifices that I am making now will allow me the greatest pleasure of living in close proximity and harmony with Nature in the future. I often have to remind myself of my youth, and that I have plenty of years ahead of me to connect with the spirit of the earth. It always brings me some peace to be around some of the trees that have seen so much more than me in their lifetimes.

I have hopes that my story of initiation into the world of men through adventure and creativity can stand for something in the future. This is something that I believe in with all of my heart and the soul that is deeply connected to the divine spirit of this earth. I am a great lover of stories because they carry forth the wisdom that a person has accrued in their life. Back at the beginning of all of this, I was blind and naïve to what it was that I was doing, but I felt like I was being led by something to create. The purpose is all beginning to make sense to me now that I understand the power of a story.

Nature is, and always will be, our greatest guide and teacher. Nature is the gateway to divine knowledge, and the pathway back to our souls. Nature binds and unites us all, and it is imperative, I believe, that every man and woman goes out in search of, and drinks from, Mother Nature’s infinite spring; filling their hearts’ cup at such a fragile period of life.

Starting Out

I started out with next to nothing - just a camera, pen and a dream that I could make the world a better place with my art. I had saved a few thousand pounds by living frugally for a while; wearing the same clothes that I had been wearing for years, eating simple meals, driving an old Ford Fiesta (that I am still proudly driving to this day, by the way) - at one point even driving no car as I walked to and from the day job selling plug sockets and radiators.

The money that I had saved through personal training on the side of my day job bought me some freedom for a while at least. I knew from the beginning that I had something different to offer the world of art; a way of seeing that was unique - perhaps it was always more of a way of thinking, and I was driven and determined to make something meaningful out of my life.

I had to give myself time to incubate my ideas and allow my shrouded vision to become clearer, away from all distractions and responsibilities. I hid away from the world in the darkness of morning; sometimes with my camera, other times with my pen and journal in hand. Whilst most of my friends were finding wives for themselves and settling into comfort, I had chosen to be without a partner for a while, and, therefore, the children that would take my attention away from my purpose. Every ounce of my creative energy went towards my vision for the future.

The entirety of 2021 was dedicated to working on my craft. I created with freedom and explored the landscape in pursuit of photographs and purpose. Although I had announced my move into the world of business to my audience online, I paid little attention to the art of making money for much of this first chapter, instead dedicating every ounce of my energy to developing my vision through the camera and voice with the pen. I worked hard on my website, too, writing blogs and copy for many of the pages - something that, only recently, has been paying its’ dividends as I have been welcoming international clients for photographic tours of Eryri (Snowdonia).

For the first couple of years, I barely earned a penny through photography - just the odd job and print sale here and there. Uptake for tuition was slow… Heck, it still is sometimes, but I would occasionally take a booking for a one to one lesson or sell one or two places on a workshop. These initial bookings offered me a glimmer of hope of a bright future as an artist. It was crazy, I thought, that people wanted to learn from me after only three years spent developing my craft. What might be possible after thirty? I always wondered.

I can’t deny that the opening chapters were tough. They certainly took their toll on my mental health. I thought that starting a business as an artist would be easy - simply put out a few announcements to my social media audience and watch the sales or prints and workshops quickly follow. Boy, was I wrong. I had underestimated the work that was required to build any business - never mind one as an artist that was prioritising purpose in a largely soulless world. Perhaps I had spent too long watching YouTube channels and Instagram reels of ‘successful’ people talking like they knew secrets about building a business (all trying to sell their eBooks, courses and coaching programs, of course). The truth is that it takes work, guts, countless mistakes, and a lot of resilience to make something out of yourself in this world. Not only do you have to have something that the world needs, but you need to learn how to sell, market, build a brand, communicate with people through conversation and writing, plan, network, manage admin, as well as much, much more.

In my mind, I thought that I would simply create photographs for the rest of my life, share them with an online world, and get paid for the privilege. I learnt very quickly that this world was not going to be so easy to penetrate. My small nest egg quickly began to dissipate. I quickly started to panic.

In between building myself a life as an artist, I have been in and out of temporary employment to make ends meet. I spent a six-month period delivering fast food to residents of a nearby town; something that did not align with the personal trainer and once-aspiring bodybuilder inside of me. This was a period of self-sacrifice that I truly resented at the time, and led to me harbouring feelings of anger towards money and the current state of this world. It wasn’t a pleasant period of life, to be honest, although I tried hard, as always, to keep a smile on my face throughout it all.

In hindsight, I can say with absolute pride that I did what I had to do to keep my dream of becoming an artist alive. Other notable jobs for me throughout this dark period were; Christmas temp as a warehouse packer, general dogs body in a honey factory, cement mixer/ labourer, and receptionist in a local gym. My way ‘here’ has certainly not been straightforward. I even ran away from it all to live in Aberystwyth for a few months back at the beginning of 2023. I was busy making quite the mess of my life through the introductory stages of my career, but, throughout it all, I have continued to create photographs and write essays, with a vision for the future firmly fixed in my mind and sense of purpose that continues to drive me forwards.

I asked myself some tough questions during what were some of the darkest times of my life. I was alone, penniless, and, at some points, feeling very angry towards the world. I thought, at times, that I was owed something for my creativity and wondered why many of my friends hadn’t supported me as I set out on my way to ‘make it’ as an artist. Although I was feeling like a ‘failure’ (commercially at least), I never lost hope completely. One of the most important questions that I asked myself was; what was I offering to the world beyond pretty pictures of the Welsh landscape?

Business, I have learnt, is an energy exchange. Whether you are an artist, engineer, or personal trainer, you get paid accordingly to the energy that you contribute to the world. In the beginning of my creative journey, the pursuit, naturally, was more about what it was doing for me than what it was doing for the world. As time passed, I organically began to link what the art of photography was doing inside of myself to what it could offer to the world. In recent times, at long last, ‘success’ has been slowly starting to find me.

‘Success’ as an artist is an interesting topic. What do you deem as success? Success, to me, can come in many shapes and forms. In my mind, I have been successful since day one. I have created work that aligns with who I am for the most part and I have continued to share my truth with the world. Even when creating less-than-original photographs of well-known locations in the earliest days, I would try to put my own spin on things, finding a unique angle, or using the light in a different way. Success, in recent times, however, has evolved. Recent publications in magazines has, of course, led to me viewing success in different ways. I count myself as blessed to be amongst the few privileged people in this world that are being paid for their gifts of creativity. With an upcoming solo exhibition in a prestigious Welsh gallery, and a role as a tutor for Light & Land, the horizon is looking almost certain to bring forth more of this ‘success’. I must continue to remind myself of my journey so far, and remember the true meaning of success; to create work that communicates the core of who I am, to educate and inspire, and hopefully, make this world a better place to exist in through the creativity that I have been blessed enough to have access to.

Doing the Reps

My reasons for pursuing photography are different to most. I take no satisfaction out of visiting a famous location that I saw online and placing my tripod legs into the three holes that were left by the previous visitor. I prefer to create something completely unique from a lesser-known area that I have developed a deep, personal connection with, and I have hope that what I have created will leave my viewers dumbfounded, wondering where it is or, better still, what it is. The idea of raising a question in a viewers’ mind gives my work far greater meaning than any rewards or recognition.

I’m driven to create, among many reasons, by the thought that what I share might just be a catalyst to ignite an ember in the soul of another human being and encourage them to rediscover their own curiosity. One of my primary drivers for practicing Nature photography is my love of personal development, which became apparent to me during a period of intensive emotional and psychological healing inside the walls of a local gym, as I pursued a short-term dream of becoming a bodybuilder between 2018-2019, grinding out ‘sets’ and ‘repetitions’ in pursuit of a stronger looking physique to carry me across the landscape. In a recent conversation with Bill Ward, I was inspired to reflect upon how my two practices; photography and bodybuilding are threads from the same twine.

A Tool for Personal & Spiritual Development

The camera, for me, is a tool for personal and spiritual development. It is, as I wrote in a previous essay, ‘a bridge between two worlds’, connecting my inner landscape to that of the outside world: uniting the soul within to the soul without. Not only has the camera given me a place and purpose here within the landscape of the outer world, but it has led to a deepening of self-awareness and understanding of both the outer and inner landscape. By picking up the camera back in 2018, I decided to begin living more consciously, paying attention to the world around me, observing everything in my surroundings; not only whilst out walking with the camera in hand, but by going about my daily life, too. Photographs are, as Ansel Adams once wrote, a result of ‘all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved’. With these words coming into my awareness early on in my creative journey, I quickly began to awaken to a deeper existence; one in which I lived with intention upon every interaction that I had.

The gifts that have been granted to me through self-expression have far exceeded any of those that I have achieved through business success, competition placements, or further recognition online and in publications. When it comes to my own creative journey, I have achieved the deepest satisfaction through the objective observation of my own development as a human being as I overcome fears, rid myself of shame, use my grief as fuel and transmute my pain through my creative works. In more recent times, I have felt deeply honoured to witness the development of clients on workshop days, one to one tuition sessions, and long-term mentorship programs, as well as, in a few cases, their own healing and process of catharsis.

In pursuit of profit in our modern world, I believe that it is far too easy for a person to lose sight of the importance of ones’ spiritual advancement. In my world, it is imperative that this remains at the forefront of what I do, much to the confusion of many of the business mentors that I have met along my way thus far. I deeply believe in the powers of Nature and the practice of photography as healing modalities that can contribute to the development and wellbeing of the human being in its’ entirety. Nature photography is a holistic practice, uniting the mind, body and spirit as one walks across the landscape on the hunt for a photograph and a resulting story to accompany it. Through the practice of Nature photography, one engages all of the senses, including the sixth sense of intuition; the importance of which is often underestimated in our modern world.

The wide array of benefits for the human being undertaking a search for a photograph, I believe, are yet to be fully appreciated. Though it is commonplace in the world of landscape photography that one focuses on the development of technical, in-camera knowledge, understanding of light, composition, and which papers to select through the printing process, one cannot underestimate what photography can offer for the development of the human being. Through the practice of photography, a person might develop hugely beneficial personal skills that are often overlooked; one might grow in confidence, become more decisive, develop observational skills and a deepened awareness of surroundings and the subtle nuances within the landscape (both external and internal), and, ultimately, through the process, as in my own case, learn to express repressed emotions and adopt creativity as an outlet for much of life’s inevitable trials and tribulations.

The storytelling aspect to the art of photography mentioned earlier is essential to protect and nurture, as it can offer a person a deeper sense of purpose and help them find place as a link in the eternal chain of consciousness. Storytelling is a lost art in our modern world. Once upon a time, we would have gathered around a campfire beneath a starlit sky and traded wisdom and experiences through the stories that we told. As individual strands of thread coming together to weave our wisdom, we would have shared a collective purpose. What greater purpose is there for human beings than to stand as keepers and weavers of wisdom for future generations?

Photography & Nature as an Alternative Therapy

I have contemplated visiting a counsellor at a few different points throughout my life so far. Once when I was a teenager, feeling helplessly lost in a world full of ‘normal’ people that seemed to know which direction to walk and appeared to be without their own troubles and scars. Another time when I was, once again, feeling helplessly lost following the breakdown of my first relationship around my mid-twenties - quite ironically, this was the catalyst for what I now know was my own spiritual awakening, and led to me losing myself to the four walls of the gym for two years before picking the camera up to continue the journey into myself to find sanctuary and deep healing. Thirdly, and most recently, around twelve months ago when I had decided to embark upon a new relationship and sought to deepen my self-awareness and meet new sides to myself, notably that of the ‘man’ that was once a complete mystery to me.

I have, however, for some reason or another, always found myself to have been deterred by what, to me, felt like an unproductive method for dealing with my issues surrounding my sense of self. I was not depressed (beyond what any person might be who was grieving a lost relationship), nor was I imprisoned by feelings of low self-esteem and confidence that were inevitable given my early life experiences. When I thought deeply about it, sitting and talking to someone seemed, to me, to be a complete waste of time and money - especially given that my life experiences, I figured, could only be truly understood by a select few people who might have shared similar life experiences.

I have been a person who has always somehow managed to find answers to my own questions by looking within, and I learnt to listen to my internal voice and navigate using the inner compass from a young age. My ‘feeling lost’ at times throughout my life was just my soul calling to express itself in its’ fullest form, beyond the constraints of society and away from the path that was laid out for me and for those people that I compared myself to earlier on in life; those same people who appeared to ‘know’ in which direction to walk.

Photography has, for me, been a therapeutic practice more than anything, helping me to make sense of myself and this earthly existence. Having grown up without physical connection to my father, I felt a large void inside of myself for many years and had the deepest questions circling around my mind about my identity and place here on earth. The trees have played the role of father, best friend, and therapist over the past few years; the natural world becoming the mirror that I always needed to learn about who I was. My struggles with my sense of identity throughout my younger years were quickly forgotten when I embarked upon the process of filling my void with new experiences and forging myself an identity through the places that I visited and conversations that I engaged in. So began what I can only describe as a process of self-creation.

Doing the Reps - In Pursuit of Self-creation

Preceding my adventure along the path of an artist creating photographs for the world, I walked, for a short while at least, the path of the sculptor. I chose not to work with materials such as stone, clay, or wood, and instead chose to work with my own flesh, blood, and eventually, spirit. Following the breakdown of the before-mentioned relationship back in 2018, I began lifting weights to deal with my emotional pain and offer it a sense of purpose. There is a well-known phrase in the world of bodybuilding that ‘breakups make bodybuilders’, and it certainly almost did in my case. I harboured a, thankfully, short-term dream of pushing (punishing) my body to its’ absolute limits and stepping on a stage lathered with fake tan to present my ‘shredded’ physique to a panel of judges in the hope that they might place me above the other physiques that would be ‘flexing’ their muscles beside me.

Upon my process of self-inquiry through my journaling practice that ran alongside my training routine, I learnt that each ‘set’, and ‘repetition’ was my attempt to build a shell to protect the fragility of my core and prove my own strength to myself and the world. I also learnt that it was, in fact, my own psychological transformation and the process of telling its’ story through the documentation of my physique transformation with photographs, that I was enjoying more than the achievement of the physique itself. I posted my two-year creative project to an Instagram page and, through the process, I learnt about the importance of consistency and discipline. Every lift was a ‘rep’. Every social media post was a ‘rep’.

After two hard years of grafting away beneath the bars, grinding out rep after painful rep, in the darkness of my local gym, six days per week, two hours per day, my motivation began to wane. I learnt that most, if not all, of the top bodybuilders in the world were regularly injecting themselves with steroids, and that was a slope that I was not willing to step onto. Thankfully, I took a spontaneous walk outdoors one afternoon and impulsively picked up my sisters’ digital camera that was glistening on her shelf in the sunlight as I walked past her room. My focus shifted swiftly to the natural world, although one eye remained fixed upon myself as I began to interact with Nature in a way that I hadn’t before.

I first stepped out into the world of Nature very much a boy in my psyche. Although Nature had always been a part of my life in some way, I never truly understood it or appreciated it throughout my younger years. Only through a period of self-study over the past few years have I begun to understand the importance of Nature, and the role that it plays in the development of the human being on a spiritual and psychological level.

In an essay, titled, ‘Learning to See Again’, that I produced for On Landscape magazine recently, I wrote the following: ‘A journey into the natural world offers great sanctuary and refuge, a place for stillness and deep reflection. When a man finds himself wandering alone on the clifftops that have been delicately shaped over millennia by the seas’ persistent chisel, what else has he to do but look back upon his own life to understand and make peace with the raging tides that carved the caves and crevasses within his own internal landscape?

Such a process of introspection can lead to immeasurable inner transformation. In my own case, the camera has been a tool for deep self-study, and I have been unable to avoid noticing the significant increase in awareness and presence within my own being since I began this practice; something that has greatly benefitted the relationships that I nurture with people around me. I move much more slowly and intently through life now, having ventured outdoors in search of the soul of Nature, and I am able to perceive much more within my own surroundings daily.’

Nature has been the portal through which I’ve entered to access greater levels of self-awareness, reach new depths of my soul, and expand my consciousness. The camera itself has been a vehicle that has transported me through time and space, back to revisit old versions of myself and forward to meet many new sides, too. Perhaps it is, that through this creative practice, I have been creating myself as well as the photographs themselves. It is through this art that I have learnt to safely express some of the deepest and most vulnerable parts of myself, rebuilding my trust with the world following some turbulent formative years that encouraged the repression rather than the expression of my deepest and truest Self.

I am learning, through this beautiful process of creativity, what it means to be a human being - one that is living to its’ fullest potential. Having been a man that followed the path of the masses, unknowing of where I wanted to walk, it brings me the deepest level of fulfilment to be out in the world with reclaimed sovereignty - walking a path that’s my own, writing a story of my own, all forming from the lived experiences of my own.

With each new adventure and peek through the lens of my camera; an evolution of the aforementioned ‘sets’ and ‘reps’, I am given an opportunity to create new stories and add pieces to the great jigsaw puzzle that is myself. Sometimes a click of the cameras’ shutter gives me an opportunity to express something and leave parts of myself behind. It is through this process that I become the highest version of myself, and I step into my greatest power as a human being - that of the conscious creator.

My potential and capacity for growth in the world of bodybuilding was limited, but, in the world of Nature and creativity; in the world of spirit, I have learnt that there are no limitations for what can be achieved. We are, like Mother Nature herself, boundless and infinite. It is through the unknown and unseen world of spirit, that these two practices are threads from the same twine.

The Universal Struggle

My photographs were born out of my deepest struggles. They are universal struggles. That is what I have been learning in recent times. Through my conversations and connections with others, I have learnt that we are all longing for the same things: love and understanding. So simple, yet so frustratingly complex for many of us.

I see it on the face of my partner when I am reunited with her after a week full of triggers and healing. I see it on the faces of my clients when we are out in Eryri in pursuit of photographs. I used to hear it in the voices of my parents as they would scream and shout at each other across the hallway late at night, and I saw it in my sisters’ actions as she invaded my room and privacy to play on my games, when all I really wanted was to be alone.

We act in ways that are so confusing and often dysfunctional because it is easier than facing our fears and exposing our fragility and vulnerability by saying, ‘I’m hurting. I don’t understand. I need some love.’ Instead, we brush our feelings under the carpet and go on pretending like everything is ok. We smile when all we really want to do is scream and cry and breakdown in front of the world. We so often act as though we don’t need love, building concrete walls around our hearts to keep it safe. All we really want is to be seen by another, naked and exposed, with all of our imperfections, wounds and scars on show.

We are mostly unconscious to the fact that we have spent our entire lives hiding from the world, portraying versions of ourselves that we think we need to be as a means of survival - to stay connected to and accepted by the tribe. We all came out of the darkness and into the light of the world in the same way - naked, screaming, and longing for our mothers’ love. In our first moments on this earth, we are held in the safety of a warm, nurturing and protective embrace. How many of those have you received since those precious, formative moments?

Bravery, I have been learning, is not going it alone. The strongest of us are not those that are independent. True courage is admitting that you need help, you need support, you need love and you need to feel understood by yourself and those around you. It is opening your heart and soul to the world and letting people in to the sanctuary that you have created inside of yourself because of the unsafety that you have felt at times amidst the chaos of the outer world. True love and understanding, I have learnt, must first be created in the safety of this inner sanctuary.

My photographs are the result of my own healing process - a long journey into Nature to create that sanctuary inside of myself, and understand the events that took place in the fires that forged me. If I can understand myself, then I can understand another. With understanding comes acceptance, and with that, comes unconditional love. A love without conditions is what we felt as we were cradled in our mothers’ arms whilst drawing our first breaths on this planet. The universal struggle that is shared by us all, is the desire to return to this place of sanctuary, where there are no walls that prevent love from entering.

Nature is the Portal to the Soul

Nature is the portal to the soul – a gateway to the Self. It is through the portal of Nature that we can access higher levels of consciousness, becoming more aware of ourselves and our existence along the way.

If we are to prevent the further self destruction of our species and planet, and transcend out of the darkness of fear, shame and guilt towards the light of love, joy and peace, then the spirit of Nature is the divine force that is going to save us.

Despite our years spent wandering through the darkness in the world of ego and identity, none of us have completely forgotten what we truly are. If you think about your own ventures away from the busyness of society and structure into the world of Nature, I am sure that you, too, will recall feelings of deep peace and tranquillity; a sense of ‘returning home’, perhaps.

Those feelings of appreciation towards Mother Nature are ones that we all share. Beyond race or religion, our nervous systems react in the same way when we walk through a silent woodland at sunrise, and the same emotions arise when we feel the salty sea envelop our weary bodies at the end of a long and tiresome week. Nature is the only thing that unites us all, and it is towards its’ beauty that we must look as we journey towards a collective healing.

Given our natural and innate negativity bias as human beings, we tend to spend so long focusing on the ugliness of ourselves and our own existence that it is all too easy to look past the beauty that comes with being human. The same beauty and innocence that we witness whilst outdoors walking in the natural world, is also innate within every human being.

With every step that we take outdoors, so, too, we walk one step along the path within our inner worlds. Everything that exists outside of us, also exists within. When we learn to recognise the true perfection within Nature, so, too, we can recognise the perfection of our own creation. We see ourselves, after all, through the same lens that we see the natural world. The more sensitive we become to the beauty of Nature, so, too, we become more sensitive towards ourselves, and, in turn, each other.

Mother Nature is our divine mirror. She is our greatest teacher. The further that we look into the soul of Nature, the further we can see into our own souls. When we can recognise the soul within ourselves, we can recognise the soul within other people, too. When we learn to open our inner eye to really ‘see’ whilst we are looking into Nature, we learn to ‘see’ ourselves, too. In turn, we can begin to really ‘see’ other people, leading to a much deeper compassion, understanding and empathy towards them.

As we look towards the seasons outside in Nature in pursuit of further understanding, so we can better understand the seasons within our own selves and others. Maybe then, we will stop applying labels that limit what and who we are, and we will realise that every patch of darkness in our own lives is just a storm that is passing through the open expanse of our inner worlds.

Instead of gazing up at the stars in wonder, allowing our minds to wander far away in a dream state, we humans can easily develop tendencies to hide away indoors within the safe confines of our self-containing prisons to protect the fragile shells that transport our consciousness.

This kind of behaviour is common amongst those of us who are, or have been, disconnected from our soul. I speak from experience having been someone who spent two decades hiding away from the world behind a screen as a child, teen, and young adult.

When we take a walk outdoors into Nature, we witness the boundless nature of this existence — we learn that we, too, are boundless in our own potential and capacity for growth.

By opening our hearts and minds through our interactions with the natural world, we begin to undo many of the beliefs that we hold about our limitations and incapability’s.

When we look towards the trees for guidance and wisdom, and learn to breathe in harmony with them, we begin to realise our true nature which is that of the spirit, and not merely physical matter, as modern science might have us believe.

When we stand atop the mountains and gaze out over the vast, empty expanse, we, too, turn one eye inwards to marvel at the open expanse that is our internal landscape.

The ultimate journey of the human being is one towards the nothingness of this great void. It is a journey to forget all thoughts about what we have been told we are. When we frequent the world of Nature, we are given an opportunity to escape our own minds and the tragic world of thought that is, all too often, responsible for our descent into chaos and destruction.

By allowing our thoughts to wander far away from the four walls that we have built around ourselves within our own minds, we can transcend our egocentric identities and remember what we truly are.

When we stand amidst the force of Nature, we, too, become limitless and boundless because the same love that flows gently between the rocks within the river also flows through our veins. The same rage that the ocean unleashes on the headland in pursuit of constant change and evolution, also exists inside of us. The same ancestral wisdom that is kept safe and guarded by the trees is also innate within the human being.

Nature is the great awakener of the human being. The open, non-judgmental space, similar to that which a therapist would provide, gives us an opportunity to look deep within ourselves to access this divine wisdom and knowledge. When we rekindle our relationship with the natural world, we repair the broken links in the chain of consciousness that reaches back as far as the dawn of time.

When we surrender all thought of who we are, come back to the breath of Nature, look out with one eye, whilst keeping the other lens firmly fixed inside of ourselves, we can recognise the symbiosis between the outer world and our own inner world. When we understand that relationship, we become aware that the same symbiosis is also occurrent within everyone else.

It is with this understanding that we see, despite the egos desire to separate and isolate itself, that we are the same heart beating and the same soul transcending towards the light. We are all so deeply connected, our hearts woven together with ancestral twine, and true connection with others is what we all so deeply crave. With deepening understanding of this knowledge, comes a depth of compassion, particularly for those souls that have drifted further away from the source.

In pursuit of ‘more’, of newer technology and further business and economic growth, we constantly spout the word ‘evolution’, but it is, in fact, this very devolution from our true nature that is the cause of humanities collective despair and psychosis. It is, in my belief, that our disconnection from Nature, and the repression of our own wild nature and tendencies is what causes much of our compulsive behaviour and the resulting guilt and shame that follows.

If we are to escape the prisons of our own feelings of guilt and shame, freeing ourselves to ascend towards a state of unconditional love and self-acceptance, then it is imperative that we take a walk from the known into the unknown (but not quite yet forgotten); through the portal into the world of Nature.

It is through this portal that we learn how to sit with ourselves and feel into our own unique inner worlds. We begin to understand how to navigate our own complex, emotional landscapes. By meeting ourselves like this in the mirror that is Nature, connecting with the trees, and coming home to the breath, we learn the art of presence. When we are truly present, we can really begin to see ourselves for what we are, and connect to that which is beyond the limitations of our own ego and identity. By finding true presence in Nature, we connect back to the soul – the one soul of this Earth that exists to unite us all.

Remembering Our True Nature

So much of our lives are spent trapped within the prison of our identities.

Only when we break down the walls that have been built to keep us small can we look out over the vast expanse and endless landscape and begin to remember our true nature.

Only when we can identify the inner narrative that has been programmed in us and plays continuously in the background of our minds, and distinguish that from the voice of the eternal that lives inside, can we begin to realise our potential.

By connecting with the natural world through all of our senses, and particularly through sight, we can gauge the scale of what we are. It is during those moments when we stand atop the mountain and gaze for miles upon miles over open land, that we free ourselves from the mental prisons that have contained us for so long. Only then do we allow for our minds to grow far beyond our own miniscule existence.

The key to this life, I believe, is to transcend the thinking mind and our three-dimensional, physical existence. Only when we are in Nature, can we access the portal to this higher dimension of being and see what we truly are beyond the beliefs and ideas of society and the fears that have been programmed into us from a young age.

Too often, we listen to people who tell us what we are and what we aren’t. We take on their judgments as our own and believe them when they tell us about our own inabilities. We spend so much of our youth obeying orders — being told what we can and can’t do; not to leave the confines of our garden and then, in our adult lives, we continue to apply the same kind of thinking.

Why is it that we are so afraid to realise our own potential and see all that we are capable of?

For many years, I, too, was afraid. I was someone who played it small. Throughout my childhood, teenage years, and early adulthood, I would sit and hide away in my bedroom, escaping from the real world into worlds within computer games. I held on to so much fear — fear that wasn’t my own; fear that was inherited from my parents; fear that was learnt and not yet understood. Fear kept me crippled. Fear kept me small. I would walk around with my shoulders rounded, my heart closed, and my throat completely constricted. I could talk in depth about the weekend football fixtures, but I could not talk about why I felt such intense amounts of fear about the world.

For us to become what we are — for us to remember our true nature, we must face our fears. We must forget all that we think we are. We must spend our time unlearning and unbecoming, so that we can remember that we are, indeed, eternal and abound with endless potential and capacity for growth.

As we stand atop the mountain and breathe in the crisp, morning air, as we lie beneath the giant oak tree who’s branches reach as far as the heavens, and roots as far as hell, we must remember that we are the mountains, the trees, and the rivers, too. With every breath, we become the air that fills the lungs of the earth. The same salt that is in our tears is the salt that fills the seabed and, so, we must remember, that inside of each of us, the sea rages and roars amidst the storm, and her waves crash upon our inner shores until she lays to rest. In that moment of stillness, we know. When the storms within our minds finally subside, and we find a moment of peace amidst the chaos, we can look out over the tranquil waters and allow our minds to expand into the nothingness from which we came. Only then, can we remember our true nature.

Reflecting Upon Six Years of the Creative Life

For twenty-six years, I was hiding. I let the world see only half of me. I didn’t want anyone to know how weak and vulnerable I was at my core, so I would reveal only what I wanted them to see. Behind the mask, I was deeply sensitive and fragile. My heart had been broken upon birth and it proceeded to break many times over as I grew.

Certain people throughout my school life could sense that I was wearing a mask, and they would do all that they could to tear it off so that I would stand exposed in all my fragility and vulnerability. I felt lost and lonely around such people for so many years. None of my friends truly knew me. How could they when I didn’t really know myself? I had not allowed myself to explore the depths of my own ocean, and I paddled around at the shore trying desperately to be noticed by loungers on the beach.

I sometimes feel a little sad that I never found an outlet for the pain of my many heartbreaks as a child. I find myself wondering what further pain I might have avoided had I understood the powers of art back in my youth. Pain, however, as I have now learnt firsthand, is necessary training as we aim to become warriors of the light, and we find our own means to deal with it when the time is right.

It has now been six years since I picked up a camera and began creating for the first time to deal with my pain. To say that my life has changed would be an understatement.

It is as though the camera has given my deeper self a voice. That part of me that, for as long as my memory serves, has been so desperate to be seen and heard is now making himself known to the world. No longer do I feel as though I am having to act as a means of gaining acceptance and approval from the people around me. No longer do I need to hide the rawest and most beautiful parts of myself. I seek not for anything from anyone because I have everything that I will ever need here within. Instead of waving my arms, desperately trying to be seen, I have been swimming alone, choosing instead to see myself, and now, paradoxically, the world appears to be noticing.

My work stands as a beacon in the icy landscape at dawn, and those who recognise truth have been finding their way to me and warming their hands and hearts on my flame. For other people, when looking at my photographs, they might see only pretty photographs of trees in mist. What isn’t evident immediately are the depths to which I have been swimming to find these parts of myself that have made creativity possible.

For six years now, I have been healing my wounds and taking tentative footsteps from behind the stage curtain, revealing my true self as the fragile and wounded being that I am. This creative journey has forced me to strip back the layers of masks that I spent the first chapter of my life wearing as a means to survive this often cruel and volatile world.

My trust with this world is being rebuilt with every click of my cameras’ shutter, and with each photograph that I create, I get a step closer to reconstructing the bridge that was severed between my inner world and the outer world during my broken youth.

The more that I open my heart to the world, the more the world opens to me. No longer do I feel the need to hide. No longer am I ashamed of my wounds. I wear them now as a badge of honour. It is because of my wounds that I am strong. My broken heart is on display like a piece of Japanese kintsugi, and I welcome visitors from all walks of life to admire my exhibition piece.

This has been a truly beautiful process. In going out to get lost in the natural world, I have found myself, and now, six years on, I somehow find that Self in a position to help others with their own journey’s of self-discovery. Now that I am here, I can’t help but beg the question, ‘what else might be possible in this life of mine?’

A Bridge Between Two Worlds

As I gaze out over the vast expanse, I am transported back to a world of distant dreams, and I wonder whether they were, in fact, memories.

So many times over the past few years, I have been led to a place for the first time and experienced a feeling of familiarity, as though I have stood there many times already.

This is such a place. Five-hundred metres up on a small rocky outcrop in a foreign land, I am far away from everything that I thought I had known.

Silhouettes of pine trees dominate the horizon and appear as dark brushstrokes against a wash of violet and mauve; the kind of fleeting colours that are only visible during these ephemeral sacred hours. Beyond the trees, snow-covered peaks of distant mountains float serenely above an advancing ocean of fog.

As the fog rises from the valley beneath me and wraps itself around me in the warmest of embraces, my soul feels a sense of safety and peace. It is during these sacred hours, when the earth becomes a sanctuary of temporary silence, that two worlds meet, and I feel like I have returned to the home that I have been eternally longing for.

The camera is the bridge that connects these two worlds. Not only does it capture what it sees in the external world that is so familiar to us all, but it reflects, at the same time, the inner world of the artist; one that is completely unique and so often unknown and unseen, even by the artists’ eyes at times.

The eyes are a window to the soul, and for many of us, that soul has been abandoned and forgotten throughout our years here on earth. Just one look at the news headlines on any given day is a stark reminder that many of our bridges have been built so long that it is difficult for us to remember where we came from, and what we were when we entered this familiar world.

Another world exists inside of me, as it does inside of you, too, and it is in the safety of this inner sanctuary that our souls reside, buried somewhere beneath the wreckage and debris of our personal and collective pain and suffering, where they are left clinging onto and protecting our fragile innocence.

These worlds are our own original creative masterpieces; and many of us, myself included, have been so desperate to tear down the walls that have guarded these inner worlds from the demons that patrol the outer one for an eternity.

In my own case, my early childhood experiences and encounters with demons in the outer world have played a vital role in the formation of my rich and vibrant inner world. The only escape from the pain of my childhood was to retreat across the bridge into the safe confines of my inner sanctuary and build the walls high and wide to keep it guarded and protect, at all costs, my own innocence.

Many of my happiest childhood memories are from the times that I spent in solitude; those precious moments spent curled up with my head in a book or role-playing outdoors in the muddy no-man’s-land that was my garden with my tanks and toy soldiers. In later years, this evolved into a world of fantasy as I locked myself away in my bedroom and escaped into post-apocalyptic landscapes and magical realms as various characters in computer games. This is a story that is shared by many, I am sure, as we have sought to escape the tragedy of our own existences.

Though my own ‘escaping’ was seemingly innocent, it took me decades to understand the depths of the effects that it was having on my sense of self, and it took for me to reach a dark place in my mid-twenties for me to begin piecing together the puzzle of my life and find the courage to revisit some of my most painful memories; the points at which I had abandoned pieces of my own soul as a means of safety and survival.

This innate ability to do whatever necessary to ensure our survival and gain acceptance to the ‘tribe’ throughout our early years, even if that means sacrificing a fundamental part of who we are; a piece of our own soul, is what makes us human beings so intelligent.

Survival is essential as we navigate the earliest and most treacherous stages of our lives, but there comes a point when it is no longer enough to merely stay alive, and we must shift our efforts towards living beyond the mode of survival in the outer world; towards truly thriving here on earth.

This meant, for me, that the desperate urge to share more of my inner world with the outer world became too strong for me to ignore. I had to find the courage to open my sensitive heart up, face my fears in the form of the demons that now haunted me in my mind, and reveal the eternal beauty that was locked away in the corner of my heart where the light of my fragile innocence still dwindled.

With reference to Donald Kalsched’s book titled, ‘Trauma and the Soul’.

Creativity is Inner Alchemy

‘Enlightened’ - A photograph by Brad Carr.

I held onto a great deal of fear throughout much of my early life. My deepest fear was that of men throughout my younger years. The three beasts that raised me broke me down and shamed me, and they inflicted a great deal of further pain onto everyone else around them. Through these men, I learnt to fear my own masculinity. My greatest fear, therefore, was myself, or rather, the fear of what I might become. As a result, I spent a long time hiding from the world and harboured a deep fear of being seen in the light of who I was.

By going out in search of photographs, I embarked upon the quest to find my own truth. En route towards that, I have been finding many of the missing parts of my own psyche and soul. Like a gigantic jigsaw puzzle, I have been piecing myself together over the past few years, adopting new parts and cutting away the old. Creating from my own place of pain has eased much of my own suffering. By exposing my wounds to the light and revealing my own darkness to myself and the world through my creative works, I have been busy disarming my demons and learning how to dance with them in the moonlight.

The camera came to me at a point in my life when I was struggling to navigate through the darkness of night. I had found myself drifting without purpose or direction. In fact, bar the childhood dream that I had of playing football professionally, I never did have much of an idea of where I wanted my life to lead.

Those who don’t determine a course of their own end up getting caught in the wake of those who do, and that is what was happening to me until I picked up the camera and pen almost six years ago. The practices of photography and writing helped me to find new direction, and access the very depths of my own soul; some of which I was always aware of, others, even still, are unknown to me.

Though I often walked with a heaviness and lingering sense of listlessness throughout most of my early years, I had no idea of the heavy emotional baggage that I had buried down in the unconscious valleys of my mind. That is, until I began exploring my own creativity with the camera and reflecting upon the things that I had created with my pen. Through creativity, we are able express our truest and most authentic selves. For many of us in the world, that ‘Self’ is the one that we are so desperate to reveal, having spent such a long time trying to hide it through fear of judgment, rejection, or shame.

Creativity, I believe, is the most powerful instrument for healing that we have in our inventory. Creativity has an unseen power to transform and transmute our greatest pain and suffering. By creating something beautiful from the place of our deepest struggles, we disarm our most frightening demons. By walking fearlessly into our darkest caves, and shining our light from within, we can face these ugly forces head on and learn how to tame them.

When we find enough courage to create from the deepest depths of our hearts, we can take our demons by the hand, blind them with our radiant light, and lead them to an eternal dance beneath the glowing moon.

It is in this very darkness, that we find the truest and most potent of all powers here on earth. To create from the source of our greatest pain brings the ultimate liberation. By visiting these frightening places within ourselves, we learn to wield the sword of darkness and bring it forth into the light of day, forcing our demons to yield before us.

This eternal dance between the threshold of darkness and light is one of pure beauty. By mastering the steps, we can integrate the lost parts of ourselves, heal our deepest wounds, and become more whole human beings. One force cannot exist without the other, and to become aware that both darkness and light exist inside of oneself, to know both intimately and to know how to make one yield whenever necessary, to grasp a firm hold on the darkness and expose it to the light; that is our ultimate superpower.

By harnessing the power of our creativity and creating from this place of truth, we become alchemists of the modern world; transmuting our own emotional pain and suffering. The ability to perform such inner magic brings the ultimate sense of freedom and the very healing that we need to exist fully as our soulful selves here on earth. It gives us the ability to create light from our darkness, and pure beauty out of the ugliness that we all have within ourselves.

‘Seeking Bliss’ - A photograph by Brad Carr.

People are often shocked when I tell them that many of my photographs contain anger in them. There seems to be a general surprise that something so beautiful can contain such a dark and ‘ugly’ emotion. We are led to believe that we should fear the darkness, and, in turn, the darker emotions like anger that exist within ourselves. I can’t help but wonder why. Isn’t it within the purity of darkness that we are all formed? Anger, as far as I am now aware, is the greatest catalyst for growth and a fuel for change. Anger, when harnessed, is the most potent of emotions, and can quickly be transmuted into love. Without the feelings of anger from my childhood, I don’t believe that my creativity would exist in it’s current form.

Nothing has been more cathartic to me than finding my own way to express these emotions through creativity, therefore, revealing a more pure, whole, and authentic version of myself to the world. In doing so, I have found a light within my own darkness. I have attributed meaning and purpose to my most painful experiences and memories, and, therefore, made peace with them. By accessing my own creativity, my pain has become my power.

I feel with such strength that all of us could benefit from finding our own method to release emotional baggage, particularly the darker emotions that are buried down in the unconscious depths of our psyche. For me, there is no better way to do so than by transmuting them into something beautiful that adds value to the world; be it via a photograph, book, video, poem, dance, song, or any other method that you care to imagine.

When we increase our own awareness of our abilities to imagine, to seek inspiration, and to create, we can break down the barriers and move beyond the limiting beliefs that we have chosen to adopt throughout our lives so far. By doing so, we regain control of our own destiny, take over the helm and decide which port we are sailing towards.

Not only do we create the work itself, but we, in turn, become the creators of ourselves and our own individual futures, as well as the future of our species as a collective. That future is, no doubt, a brighter one, should we all learn how to better navigate our complex emotional landscapes by further understanding and utilising the power of creativity to dance with our own demons underneath the moonlight and tame our own darkness with light.

Exploring the Inner Landscape

The Formation of the Inner World

I have written openly in recent years about the early life experiences that shaped the way in which I see the world today; equipping me with a lens of compassion and sensitivity.

For those of you who are new readers to my journal, I’ll provide a little bit of context. The outer world into which I was born was rather chaotic and turbulent, to say the least. I spent many of my waking hours on guard, wondering when the next home makeover might be. It didn’t take much to send my first stepfather into a fit of rage. He usually liked to have his own way, and if he didn’t, objects were very likely to go flying across the room. Life with my second stepfather at the head of the home didn’t bring much more in the way of peace, either.

These experiences forced me to withdraw into the safe confines of my own world. It is one that I built inside of myself as a way of dealing with the chaos of the outside world. I was far too young to be able to control or influence what was going on outside of me, but I learnt early on that I did have control over my own thoughts and actions. I have been directing these towards building the most beautiful inner world since those earliest days.

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

~ Viktor E. Frankl, Mans Search for Meaning

‘Enlightened’ - A photograph by Brad Carr.

Research shows that sound moves at a faster speed in water (1500 meters/sec) than in air (about 340 meters/sec). As we are formed in water whilst in the womb, I wonder whether the formation of my inner world was accelerated as the sounds of my alcoholic fathers’ rages may have affected my energy before I was even conscious. These photographs, I feel, are representations of that world. Inside, there is an overarching sense of peace and tranquillity; similar to those that you’d feel beside an isolated mountain lake at dawn, or whilst walking along a footpath between trees.

Every adventure and each new meandering footpath into the unknown introduces me to an unexplored corner of my own inner landscape; one that is equally as complex as the one that is outside of me. Sitting beside a lake in stillness allows me to reflect upon my life and make sense of who I am, and, as importantly, who I am not, and further understand the events that shaped me. As far as I have been walking outdoors into the wilderness, I have also been travelling inwards. As I deepen my understanding of my inner world, so my understanding of Mother Nature and her ways deepens, too. It is an eternal cycle.

‘‘As above, so below. As within, so without. As the Universe, so the soul.’’

‘Silent Waters’ - A photograph by Brad Carr.

The Camera as Tool for Self Study

I understand that my approach to photography is different to many, perhaps, more traditional photographers, as I choose not to focus too much on time, place, or too many of the technical elements that might take away from the deeper, and, to me, more interesting topics such as ‘why’, ‘what’, or ‘who’. The act of picking up the camera to begin telling stories of my own connection to the landscape was my process of awakening to something beyond this three-dimensional physical world. It was my way of accessing a voice that was deep within and connecting with a divine higher presence.

‘‘Who looks outside dreams. Who looks inside, awakes.’’

~ Carl Jung

Given the environment that I grew up in, I feel like I received an immersive education in psychological understanding, having been closely observing the inner world of my parents, and how they were reflected in the outer world that they created. Inner chaos created outer chaos. I choose to open up and write about my early life experiences because I believe that these adverse childhood experiences have given me a unique set of skills and placed me in a position to offer some unique insights into the psyche, and shine a light on what the creative practice of photography and writing, as well as spending prolonged periods of time in nature can offer the human soul.

At more than one stage throughout my life, I have been limited by the four walls of my home. Having nursed some deep psychological wounding as a result of my early life difficulties, I became addicted to computer games for large parts of my teenage life and early adulthood, disassociating and escaping from my reality. As a result of this addiction, I rarely ventured outside of my bedroom, never mind outdoors into the unknown. Upon reflection, I can see how limited I was in my ways of thinking, and how confined my world was; both inside and out.

By choosing to step outside one day into the wide, open landscape, I chose to open the chamber of my own psyche; stripping back old beliefs and building new ones. So began my process of both self creation and self destruction. As I discover new areas of this world and walk along previously untrodden footpaths, I allow my brain to build new neural pathways. No longer am I stuck in old ways of thinking, keeping me a prisoner of the past, but I open myself to endless avenues for exploration. Our worlds, as mentioned earlier in this essay, are merely a reflection of our thoughts, and so, by frequenting nature as often as I can, I allow myself to break many of the old thought patterns that weren’t my own, observe my current thoughts, and provide an opportunity for new ones to formulate.

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Though the initial stages of my photographic journey saw me focus on the technical elements of the practice as I familiarised myself with the camera, lenses, settings, and understanding of light, I quickly began to formulate an interest in the psychological aspects of the art as I observed the many changes that were occurring within myself as I progressed along my way. I started to follow my intuition and inner guidance; ‘feeling’ my way towards new areas of the landscape and capturing my emotional state in my photographs. It turns out that many reflected the feelings of peace that I had become familiar with in the safety of my own world. It wasn’t a conscious decision to create photographs like this. I was simply following my inner bliss which led me along this footpath and eventually to the warm and safe embrace of the trees.

‘‘If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be.’’

~ Joseph Campbell

I am somebody who likes to know the ‘why’ behind most things, and I began to ask myself that simple question more often about the work that I was creating; particularly throughout 2021 following a conversation that I had with my nan who used her child-like imagination to see things in my photographs that weren’t apparent to me. I became curious about my nans’ inner world, and her own apparent reconnection to her imaginative inner child, now that she was well into the latter years of her life. It raised some deep questions inside of my mind such as, ‘why would I want to wait all those years to imagine and simply play again?’ and ‘what happened to the boy who used to love getting lost in stories and at one point even enjoyed writing his own?’

Whilst outdoors with my camera following that conversation, I would begin to see things differently. Narratives and stories that were personal to me started to become apparent. Some even forced me to look at and make further sense of familial relationships; past and present, as the stories that I had ‘seen’ turned out to be reflections of many of the stories that I had buried within my psyche.

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

~ Carl Jung

‘Soul Retrieval’ Through Nature Photography

That conversation with my nan forced something of an evolution in my work and the way in which I look at the world as I reconnected with my own inner child again and began to engage with my imagination to create photographs of subjects, such as the dancing trees in ‘First Dance’.

I began searching inside of myself that year to find out when I had started to build the bridge that lead me away from my own imaginative, sensitive and curious inner child, and what events caused this disconnection. Of course, I looked immediately towards the trauma that had built up inside of me after growing up in a home environment that was marred with instances of domestic abuse and violence. I also drew back on the experiences of fleeing those places that I called ‘home’ on three separate occasions as a child because of my mothers need to escape the ugliness of the environment that we were being raised in, therefore, leaving parts of my own self behind with the wreck and debris. Finally, I recalled many instances of emotional abuse that I was subjected to from these men in my life who would relentlessly throw insults at me for being a sensitive, expressive and emotional soul; traits that I believe all humans possess at their core. Upon feeling the emotional abandonment from these men, as well as that from my biological father at birth, I learnt to abandon parts of my own Self. For most of my life, up until I began this inward journey and found creativity, I hated being labelled by people as sensitive. I wrongly viewed it as a weakness, and constantly relived the rejection that I felt as a child.

This separation from parts of myself is what is known as ‘soul fragmentation’, or ‘soul loss’. It is common, once we experience something traumatic in our lives, whether physical or emotional, to try to escape the full impact of the pain by blocking it out. It is said that parts of our soul separate from us at the time and place of the event, which can cause a person to become dissociative and lead to further problems such as depression, disconnection, loss of purpose, and feelings of incompleteness and hopelessness.

In hiding and abandoning parts of myself from the world, I had also built many false sides that I would often display in the hope of gaining acceptance and approval from my caregivers and, in later years, my peers. In hindsight, I know that my addiction to computer games was my own attempt to block out much of the pain that I was feeling from my adverse childhood experiences. I felt empty, lost, disconnected and alone for large parts of my teenage years and early adulthood, and I struggled with a lack of purpose and meaning for those years of my life, too.

In recent years, as I have been further exploring my interest in psychology and spirituality, I have been reading about many interesting concepts and beliefs from different cultures and religions across the world. One of the ideas that has fascinated me the most is that of something called ‘Soul Retrieval’, which has its’ origins in ancient shamanic traditions. The word ‘shaman’, which originates in the Tungus tribe of Siberia, means ‘one who sees in the dark’. Soul Retrieval is the process where a shaman moves into altered states of consciousness to travel to realities that are outside of our normal perception, also known as the spirit worlds, to retrieve the lost parts of a humans’ soul.

By substituting the computer games for creativity and time in nature, which allows me the time and non-judgmental space to find stillness and reflect, I have been processing much of the pain that I had once been avoiding. By revisiting many of the early life experiences that caused this fragmentation of my soul, I believe that I have been integrating many of the lost and forgotten parts of myself, as well as further distancing my true self from those parts of the false self that I had created in my quest to ‘fit in’ and be accepted.

Every winding footpath and walk through the woodland leads me a little bit further into my own inner landscape. With each walk outdoors into nature, I learn that the acceptance that I was always seeking could only come from within. I owe my life to Mother Nature for her help in guiding me along my path. I am a more complete person for each conversation that I have had with the trees, and my soul now sings whenever I sit beside the silent waters in Snowdonia. This journey inwards, for me, has been an incredibly healing one, and I hope that my words can go some way towards helping other people along on their own.

A New Dawn

A familiar stillness is in the air. The world has not yet woken up and I seem to be the only one here on Earth. It feels almost post-apocalyptic. I think back to many of the films and computer games that have inspired me throughout my life so far, and, on mornings like this, I feel like I am the character inside of my own.

All of this time alone on the road gives me time to think. That is the beauty of being awake during these sacred hours, and another reason why I love to travel outside of my immediate local area for photography occasionally. The thinking time in the car is almost as important as the photography itself. I put on some music - ‘Immunity’ by Jon Hopkins is often one that I listen to during travel. The beautiful melody and vocals inspire me to go deeper into my own thoughts; deeper into myself. I often dream about my future, and piece together the puzzle of my life by reflecting upon the past.

This morning, I am in the process of deep reflection. I can’t help but go back to visit a previous version of myself; one who hadn’t held a camera yet, and actually had no idea about what ‘photography’ was.

I never harboured much interest in art when I was younger. I put in minimal effort during art class in school, and instead sat and daydreamed about the computer games that were waiting for me back home. I was an avid gamer from the age of around five or six, until the age of twenty-five. I still remember, as if it was yesterday, the morning when me and my older sister stealthily sneaked downstairs before the sun had risen to turn on our stepfathers’ games console for the first time. That morning, we probably managed to play for an hour or two before he woke. In later years, I could easily rack up ten, sometimes even twelve hours of screen time. I can’t help but think about how much my life, and I, have changed in a relatively short period of time.

Instead of roaming around dreamed up worlds, playing a character from the imagination of someone else, I find myself trudging through ‘Dead Marshes’, roaming the forests of ‘Fangorn’ and post-apocalyptic wastelands here in the real world.

I am inspired to dream again. I wonder what might be possible for this character that is myself, given another few decades of growth. I have been recovering many of the lost parts of myself; the skills and superpowers that I left behind and ran away from as a child; those of empathy, sensitivity and curiosity, all of which us humans are at our core. Now that I have them, and have discovered more of a sense of my authentic ‘Self’, I can’t help but think about many of the other characters that are roaming this world as they play out their own stories, and try to find their own place here in this gigantic jigsaw puzzle.

I look out of the window at the world that is whizzing by. Silhouettes of pine trees against the twilight blue sky. These are the moments that help to reprogram my mind. The order that follows from chaos. No future, nor past. I take a deep breath, and come into the ‘now’. Everything is still. I can hear the stars whisper. Promise of a new dawn echoes in the clear night sky. The mountains draw near. Their outline dominates the horizon. A sense of safety washes over me. I am home.

My destination this morning is a small area of heathland beneath the Moelwynion mountains, just a stones throw away from the birthplace of the red dragon and the grave of the legendary hound, ‘Gelert’. I stumbled upon this land and made friends with a beautifully expressive silver birch tree there back in the summer of 2021, and I return today with the hope of creating a photograph that has been formulating in my minds’ eye since that afternoon.

A blanket of mist has been drawn over the landscape overnight. It seems as though the trees are still tucked in and dreaming beneath the sheets. I dare not wake them up prematurely, so I park up beside the road and tread the half-mile track as lightly as a ballet dancer would on its’ stage.

This landscape, a stage all of its’ own, and the main character in this performance is my friend, the silver birch. As it begins to awaken, I join it on the stage to express myself in the ways that I have learnt to over the past few years; with my camera and words. Two characters in perfect harmony.

I often see parts of myself inside of my photographs, and express from a place deep within. In this case, I see some further parts of myself that perhaps went missing through my younger years. Expression wasn’t particularly encouraged as I grew up. My mother, unsurprisingly following years of abuse, was chronically depressed throughout much of my childhood, so our house was never filled with too much joy. Me and my siblings would play, but always quietly and carefully. My stepfathers’ volatile moods ensured that we would be walking on eggshells for most of our waking hours. He would also place expectation on me to ‘be a man’, meaning that there wasn’t much room for me to display my emotions.

It fills me with a great amount of gratitude to have finally found my methods to express the deeper parts of myself and my emotions using my camera and pen, but still, I look at my friend, the silver birch, with a hint of envy, and wonder what it might be like to sing or dance in front of a crowd, as it does every day to the mountains.

I stand here and dream again for a moment. ‘Who knows where this path might take me in the future’, I think to myself. I come back to the moment, and enjoy the silence and stillness of this magical morning. I open up the shutter on my camera to capture the photograph that I have been dreaming about for eighteen months. It is even more beautiful than I could envision. With this photograph, comes the promise of the new dawn, as whispered by the stars. I have been granted the chance to make of it something better than yesterday.

Becoming Nature

‘Reach’ - A photograph by Brad Carr

The impact that Mother Nature has had on my life over the past few years has been profound, to say the least. My life is, in so many ways, unrecognisable to the one that I was living just a few years ago, not to mention the one that I was living throughout my childhood years, during which I was often too afraid to leave my bedroom. Those people in my life who have known me for a while have even made comments about the significant changes within myself in recent times, and I believe that is a testament to the trees, mountains, and lakes that I have been frequenting over the past half decade.

The natural world that we inhabit is in a constant state of change, and it is only natural that we as human beings, children of Mother Earth herself, live fully in alignment with her, and do what we can to change, grow and evolve, too.

The key for my own happiness and, more importantly, fulfilment, as I have learnt recently, is change and growth, and I believe that it is the same for all of us, whether we are conscious of it or not. Be it business growth, physical growth, personal or spiritual growth, the key for most of us is more, bigger, better, and stronger, and I feel like much of our general discontentment as a species comes as a result of stagnation, and lack of awareness that what we crave and so desperately need is growth and change.

With that being said, I also firmly believe that the root of our unhappiness and discontentment can be found when we observe the increasing distance in our collective relationship with the source of all life itself, Mother Nature.

As human civilisation continues its’ rapid charge into the Information Age and beyond, and we spend more time plugged in, wired up, and completely disconnected from our nature, it is difficult not to observe the dramatically rising numbers in mental health conditions and neurological disorders throughout the world.

It seems to me as though we can’t cope with our own rate of ‘evolution’, and are quickly becoming too caught up in, and identified with our thinking minds. Lack of education around how to manage these fragile devices of ours too often sees people falling into a trap and becoming consumed by their own thoughts. Increased time on screens forces comparison, and often leaves people feeling empty, worthless, and unfulfilled. We also seem to be more divided than ever, with everything now apparently becoming a war of two sides, and our screens certainly don’t help matters, only serving to encourage and accelerate division. We are in desperate need of unity.

Nature, from my personal and anecdotal perspective, has provided me with an escape from my own mind and allowed me to disconnect from my own thoughts and enter into the all-important and often too ephemeral state of ‘being’. This is a topic that me and Marc Robbins discussed in great depth on my latest episode of ‘Finding Light’, and I found it most interesting that many of our own reasons for practicing photography align, having walked similar paths through life. When I feel any negativity creeping into my own thinking, and a disturbance of my own emotions, the first place that I go is outdoors into the warm embrace of Mother Natures’ arms. She presses the reset button and usually brings me swiftly into a state of ataraxia. In nature, too, as I have observed, there is no judgment based on who I am, what I believe or what colour I am. Out there, we are all the same. We are united as one.

Having become increasingly conscious of the effects of early trauma in my own life and development, through observation of myself as well as that of the lives of my parental figures and siblings, I have some understanding of how our bodies hold onto our experiences, and how our own energy has been affected and disrupted, causing behaviours, reactions, and emotions that are seemingly beyond our control in certain situations. It is my belief that the time that I have spent outdoors in nature over the past few years has created a huge shift in my own energetic body, and, as Eckhart Tolle might call the ‘pain body’, bringing healing to my wounded spirit, and helping me to build the bridge between who I was and who I am now, lengthening the distance between my unconscious actions, driven by early observations, and my conscious actions, driven by this state of ‘being’ and ‘presence’.

As mentioned in an earlier essay, I believe that, for myself, the trees have played a role of therapist, as well as best friend, and father, and the branches have untangled the knots within my own mind, helping me to make sense of who I am, or, perhaps, ‘what’ I am, because, with every walk outdoors, I become a little more like the trees that I choose to connect with. The trees and landscape, as a whole, has provided me with a non-judgmental safe space to simply ‘be’. Mother Nature has accepted me wholly, as I am; and that all-accepting, unconditional love is something that I feel I have been able to take out into the world and offer to other people. It makes me wonder what the world might look like if we all worked to develop a deeper level of self-love and self-acceptance.

The identity that I spent some time building throughout my twenties, I now strive to disidentify from, as I recognise the oneness that I, and all of us, collectively share with Mother Nature herself.

It has come to my awareness, all the more recently, that man is not separate from or superior to nature, but we are nature itself. My body remembered when I took my first steps outdoors after my awakening back in 2018. Feeling lost and somewhat depressed as I lay in my room in tears one night, unsure of what my life had come to, and which way to turn next, I found the camera and the camera took me home; outdoors into the wilderness. The voices of my ancestors whispered softly as I took my first steps along the icy path to Llyn Idwal one bitterly cold, winters’ afternoon, and my soul remembered how it felt to be at one with nature once again, laying to rest the deep yearning for belonging that has been ever present in my life for as long as my memory serves.

The deep feelings of inner peace that I experience whilst outdoors, continue to point the way towards healing, towards home, towards that very oneness that we all so desperately need with Mother Nature, and I hope that these words and photographs can echo her cries for unity. With this being said, I have been feeling, with increasing strength recently, that this isn’t ‘me’ creating these works, but that they are simply being channelled through me from the planets’ life force; Mother Gaia herself. My next chapter, I feel, is about continuing to explore the disidentification from myself as my soul remembers its’ place here in the eternal, and how, in some ways, I am this earth, and Gaia herself, as are we all.

There is a wealth of knowledge and wisdom to be gained from Mother Nature and the places that we visit here on earth. The trees and woodlands themselves hold plenty of secrets; many of which we are only just beginning to discover, and, if we learn to silence our minds for long enough, maybe then we will hear more of what the trees whisper to the winds. With enough time outdoors, walking beside the rivers and along mountaintops, perhaps we might all be able to remember who, or what, we are. Maybe then, we will form the community that many of us deeply desire.

It is my belief, as mentioned earlier, that we are all one here on this planet; one collective consciousness, and I can’t help but feel as though the earth is trying to make us all remember, waking us up one person at a time. That is why being outdoors in nature feels so healing to us all, in my opinion. Mother Nature gives us her love, so that we might pass it on to each other, and live how we are supposed to live; here in the moment, and in harmony with her, and each other.

We are nature, and we desperately need to go back. Back to a time when nature was diagnosed whenever we had a problem, instead of prescription pills in the name of profit. Back to a time when we all understood the secret language of the trees, and shared their stories with each other so that we all might live deeper and more meaningful lives. Back to a time when we kept a community tightly around us, all looking out for one another, picking one person up if they fell.

A world of isolation is not healthy for anyone, and I can’t help but feel as though we have all spent far too long by ourselves in recent years. Maybe you have doubts about who to trust and keep around you. I think that you’d be justified in being a sceptic after recent world events. I can’t help you there, or tell you which way to look, but I can tell you that Mother Nature has yet to fail me since I placed my trust in her. She has been letting me into many of her secrets as I sit in silence beside the lakes in Eryri, and the ancient trees nearby have been sharing much of their wisdom; talking to me with love and kindness as they allow me into their safe spaces. They have brought plenty in the way of healing to my wounded spirit over the past five years, and helped me to accept and love myself fully. I wonder what she has been bringing to you in that time, and what the trees have been whispering to you in your moments of silence?

Achieving Catharsis Through Nature Photography

This morning, I found it inside of myself to answer the 5.30am alarm call for the first time in months. This hasn’t been the most productive year for my photography portfolio to say the least. The motivation levels to get out and shoot have waned for much of it, as has my zest for life itself at times. I am not one to ‘fail’ too often, so, after far too many snoozes already this year, I was determined to beat myself this time round, and get out of bed before the world woke up to create something now that the seasons are finally beginning to show signs of change.

Summer has never particularly been my favourite time of the year to create, and I boast only a handful of ‘green’ photographs in my portfolio, so I always forgive myself for not getting out too often during the months of 4 and 5am sunrises. This mornings’ photoshoot over in the Shropshire Hills provided me with the boost that I’ve been needing for a long time, and it has come at the perfect time. Autumn will soon be upon us, and this is, without doubt, my favourite period to be creative. The creative batteries are overcharged, and almost ready to blow.

Photography has become my fuel, my life source, my magic elixir. If I have a meaningful photograph on my camera, then I can feel like I’m walking around on a cloud for weeks. It’s difficult for me to remember what my life looked like before I found creativity and my personal form of expression. The term ‘a photograph speaks a thousand words’ has a much deeper meaning since I began creating photographs myself half a decade ago now. This year, I’ve been incredibly busy with words as I continue to hone my writing skills as a way of adding more depth and meaning to my work. I have been so busy writing that I have actually forgotten how much a photograph allows me to say at the quick click of a button.

The click, of course, is the instant that ends months, in this instance; years, of scouting. I have gotten to know these trees incredibly well, and they have helped me to express and say a great deal without words over the past twelve months. It was here that I found refuge during a rather difficult period of my life towards the back end of 2022. The melancholic feel to the wintery landscape reflected my mood and emotions at the time, and my camera enabled me to express many of them, which brought a much needed cathartic release, and allowed me to lighten my load significantly.

Photography, as I have realised all the more over the past few years, possesses great power to transform. Not only has it brought me much closer to Mother Nature in recent years, but it has allowed me to release a lot of emotional baggage that I had been holding onto for much of my early life. The camera has been a tool for healing, and my spirit is grateful that it found its’ way into my life. The person that I am today differs greatly to the person that I was back at the beginning of this creative journey.

In a recent book that I read titled, ‘Art Heals’ by Shaun McNiff, the author writes about how artists are this worlds’ modern day shamans. I’m not going to start referring to myself as a shaman just yet but I can certainly see where he might be coming from, having observed many of the changes within myself over the past few years. The healing journey that I have been on has permanently adjusted my own energy, in the same way that shamans have been doing for millennia. Of course, I have a long way to go on this quest of mine before I can make such claims, but mornings like this always serve to remind me of just how far I have come in a relatively short period of time. The further that I walk along my way, the more I understand the purpose behind what it is that I am doing with the camera.

My own purpose for creating photographs differs to many. There are no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ reasons for creating, just as there are no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ ways to create. It just is that I have my own personal reasons, ones that I have spent a lot of money on ink to uncover, and I strongly believe in those reasons; a) for the benefit of myself, and b) for the greater benefit of the world as a whole. My ethos in recent times has been very much; ‘connection first, creativity second’. I believe that it is the time spent outdoors in, and my deepening connection with nature that has been the primary reason for much of my own healing and transformation. Creativity has, of course, been a vital component and has amplified my connection to Mother Nature and this planets’ life force; Gaia.

It is my belief that my own connection to nature that, strengthened over time, and with conscious thought directed to the energetic shifts inside of myself that are greatly influenced when aligned with the neutral energy that Mother Nature herself possesses, has led to a deeper connection with myself, and a greater sense of Self, as a result. By deepening my connection with and healing my relationship with myself, and allowing more room for empathy and understanding, I have developed a deeper level of self-love and self-acceptance. If I can allow this for myself, then I can allow this for other people, too. If my time in nature allows me this space to heal, then, from recent experience, I can carry this space forward to other people. It is my hope that, by embarking on this quest, I am able to succeed where my early caregivers failed, and make this world a better place by choosing a life of creation, instead of that of destruction.

With just the song of the birds for company, I roamed this area freely and with plenty of enthusiasm in search of something to create. It was to be a fruitful morning; the work that I have been putting in during many scouting trips in the Shropshire Hills since 2021 paid dividends, as I managed to create a handful of photographs that have plenty of life in them, and will live in my portfolio, telling a story for many years to come.

There was to be no magical light this morning, as I had hoped for whilst laying in bed just a few hours previously, but I was grateful for the thick fog that lingered and protected me and the silver birch trees from the outside world for a few hours, allowing me to forget the madness that exists out there in the ‘real world’ for a short while. The ‘real world’ to me, is the one right here amongst these wonderful trees. It seems crazy to think that this has become my escape.

I often liken a woodland on a foggy morning to the safety and security of the womb, and this morning certainly felt like that as I curled up like a foetus against one of the generous silver birch trees for my half an hour nap at 10am. It has been a testing year for me on a personal level, and I have been processing lots of change and clearing room inside of myself for even more growth. Mornings back in the womb like this always help to reset me, ground me, and allow me to find my centre after the inevitable periods of drifting that we experience as excessively creative people.

It had, up until this morning, been a short while since I created a photograph. It has been over nine months since I created a body of work as meaningful as this one. It is ironic that that body of work was created in exactly the same location last winter. Everything looked different back then, and the boot prints that I left for myself were invisible to me this morning. I lost my bearings on many occasions whilst trying to find them in hope of recreating some old compositions. Getting lost served as a reminder to me of how much has happened in my life in that time, and how much the land has changed. Or, perhaps it is me that has changed.

The past year or so has been joyful in many ways, in others it has been a real struggle. What I see from these photographs, and what I feel after a much needed morning outdoors in solitude, trudging through bog and knee-high bracken, with the sounds of the birds ringing out in my ears, receiving hugs from some of my favourite trees whilst I take a well-earnt nap, is hope. Hope that I am back on the right track. Hope that there is an abundance of creative energy boiling beneath my surface, getting ready to erupt. Hope, that I can be a man who makes some changes in this often dark world with this creativity that I’ve somehow channelled. Hope that there is always promise of light at the end of a dark tunnel.

Finding Home in Wales

I arrived in Wales when I was eight years old. Me and my family had spent the previous six months or so living in a block flats just outside of Portsmouth city centre. It was busy, loud, and rather unattractive, to say the least. We would make regular visits to the seaside, to marvel at HMS Victory and HMS Warrior in port and escape the monotony and chaos of city centre living whenever possible but, from memory, there weren’t too many trees in sight.

My mum had her roots in the countryside, and I’m sure that, had her childhood dreams come true, she would have been happily married, raising me and my siblings around trees, rivers and rolling hills. Her life had followed a different path, however, and in the middle of 1999, she finally managed to escape her second turbulent and abusive relationship, fleeing Loughborough for good after her partner, who had ‘rescued’ her from the first; my biological father, had beaten her so badly on multiple occasions, that she was left fearing for her life on a daily basis.

With partner number three now standing beside her, we had our bags and belongings packed up almost overnight, waved goodbye to the few friends that we had chance to, and set out on an adventure to the south coast of England. We arrived late one evening. It was dark and dreary. I still vividly remember the bright lights of the city appearing at a great distance in the front windscreen as we made haste along the M1. My new life had begun.

I remember feeling a great deal of fear, as well as confusion but, in all honesty, I was, more than anything, feeling incredibly relieved because I was glad to be escaping what had been six years of hell and torment, and life in the middle of a city would have offered much more in the way of peace than my home life had for many years. We had already moved once before; from the south of England, where I was born, to Loughborough, so I knew that I was adaptable enough to settle and make new friends.

City-centre life, however, was short-lived. At the turn of the new millennium, just as me and my family were beginning to settle, my mums ex-partner had somehow caught wind of our location, and, like a predator upon its’ wounded prey, was planning to strike again. History has a way of repeating itself and, once again, we packed up our belongings, this time literally overnight, and set off on yet another whirlwind adventure. We landed in a small market town called Welshpool in the beautiful mid Wales countryside, where my mums’ then-partner had some distant family connections.

Little did I know at the time that Wales would be my home for the next twenty-three years of my life. After eleven or so years of utter chaos and unpredictability, I managed to find some peace here in the Severn Valley, surrounded by the trees, rivers, and rolling hills.

The lakes, mountains, and, especially, ancient woodlands in Wales have provided something of a sanctuary for me over the past five years in particular, and, whilst held in the safe embrace of the silver birch and oak trees, I have been working hard to heal my wounded spirit from a childhood that left many scars, both emotionally and psychologically.

As I encroached upon manhood, I was rather lost and confused about who I was, as well as struggling to understand my own role as a man, having had irresponsible and neglectful role models for much of my youth. Midway through my identity crisis, I stumbled into some of the country’s woodland and found a long-lost love of trees. It was through frequent visits to some of this woodland that I began to create characters out of the trees. It is an innate tendency of human psychology to interpret nonhuman things with human characteristics, and is known as ‘anthropomorphism’. The trees became characters in my own world, and offered a sense of calmness, stability, protection, and consistency; all of which were unknown to me throughout my childhood years.

The trees in Wales’ beautiful and enchanting ancient woodland, have played the roles of father, best friend and therapist for me in recent times. Exposure to countless traumatic events throughout my childhood, mainly before my family found solace here in these quiet and charming hills, left me with a rather fragmented sense of self. To give you some context; my biological father was an alcoholic, my first stepfather suffered with some severe mental health conditions and abused drugs, and my second stepfather turned out to be a criminal. All of them were emotionally immature, had frequent bouts of aggressive and violent behaviour towards my mother, as well as myself and my siblings, and were ill-equipped to deal with fatherhood. I was frequently shamed for being ‘too soft’ and ‘too sensitive’ by these men, and so I class it as something of a miracle that these photographs and words exist today.

Mother Nature, as I have found, offers no judgement, criticism, or shame, unlike the men that raised me. She is all-loving and all-accepting. Outdoors, there is room for all, but those who approach life with a softness and sensitivity, are bound to receive more of her good tidings, as I have been for half a decade now.

The trees here in Wales have played a vital role in my personal development, and I began to notice many changes within myself after being around them; I have been notably becoming much calmer, more patient, and present; something that I struggled with whilst growing up. Nature was providing and holding space for me to heal, and I was then able to provide space and be more present in conversations whilst back in society.

Wales is a land that is rich in stories of folklore and legend, and, in recent times, I have enjoyed getting lost in many of them as I reconnect to the inner child that spent most of his time with his head inside of books, lost in imagination and fantasy. It seems as though my life has gone full circle, and I have now ventured out into the landscape to create my own stories for the world to enjoy. The life that I have had here in Wales thus far, is a world away from where I started out, and the photographs that I create serve to represent the feelings of inner peace and tranquillity that I experience whilst outdoors in nature.

Why I Create Photographs

The art of photography has been something of a spiritual practice for me. I don’t wish to discredit the pursuit of creating photographs for creating photographs sake, but I have always been looking for something more from photography than the mere documentation of a place or time. I seek to express who I am at my essence. I strive to communicate emotions. I want to share my own human experience and allow the viewer to feel what I feel when I am standing out there, all alone in these wild places, and maybe even go some way to helping them answer some of the questions that they have about their own lives.

Around six and a half years ago, I reached a place of complete discontentment with my life. A relationship had recently ended and I had begun to feel trapped. I was working a dead-end job in a local supermarket, with no vision or direction for my life, and, to be honest, I had completely lost sight of who I was. I wasn’t content to let this precious life pass me by so I decided to wake up one day and make it one worth living. I had a story inside that was beating at my chest and needed to be released, so I picked up my phone camera and began telling it.

It was never going to be a straightforward story, and it’s one that will probably take me until the end of my days to tell effectively. I’m trying now though, and that’s a big step along this journey of mine. There was a time when all of this was locked away inside, and that was incredibly painful. I knew that I had experience and knowledge that could help people, yet I was too fearful of what the world might think about me to open myself up and air it. My fragile ego kept me imprisoned, and held me back for many years.

I guess it goes to show how much I have grown. I’m now in a place where I can talk about the things that once brought unexplainable pain and suffering, whereas I was once a closed book, hiding myself away from the world; often too afraid to be seen, never mind allowing my voice to be heard.

Being a quiet type; people always assume that there is something wrong with you. My main concern when I am busy talking is that if I am talking, then I’m not observing. If I am not observing, then I am not learning, and if I am not learning, then I am not growing. So that, I guess, is the first reason why I create photographs. Photography requires observation. It requires introspection. It requires that I pay attention, and, most importantly, it allows me to learn; about my artistic medium, the world, and about who I am. It allows me to be myself, and to make use of many of the traits and quirks that I have been hiding for much of my life.

If I expressed myself as a child, I would usually be met with shame from the father figures that I had. I was too sensitive, emotional, and open for them. They disapproved of the pure, childlike love that I had for this world, myself, and my mother.

You see, my openness, purity, and innocence reflected back to them everything that they weren’t. I can understand that now as an adult. It’s the case anytime someone makes a criticism about another persons’ character. As a child, of course, it’s difficult to comprehend this, however, and the words of others, especially caregivers, sink in right to our core. I allowed the words of these men to affect me deeply throughout much of my life, and only recently have I started to understand the impact that they had on my development throughout my earliest years.

The world that I lived in through these early years was completely unsafe. The three men that I had around at different stages throughout the first eleven years of my life were all volatile, violent, and wildly aggressive. They were often fuelled by alcohol and drugs and it was difficult to know which version of them I was going to meet. Each one of these would bring out a different version of my mother, too, so, as a child, I was often on guard and in a state of hypervigilance as a way of keeping myself safe. I developed a deep understanding of my own complex emotional landscape as a result of my early experiences. This, I believe, allows me to translate how I’m feeling whilst out in the woodland, or beneath mountains and, therefore, helps me to communicate things through my photographs that words have never allowed me to. These photographs, I believe, are representations of the inner world that I began creating in my moments of dissociation from the real world that I belonged to in my youth.

These early experiences formed the foundations for my deep affinity with Mother Nature and the stillness and silence that she provides. The consistency that she offers was something that was foreign to me, having grown up around complete chaos. As my trust has been growing with this world over the past few years, I have been more and more willing to express my truth and reveal more of what is in my heart, and I am able to make more sense of this during moments of reflection whilst immersed in nature.

The past half decade or so has been a process of unpackaging, understanding, and unlearning much of what I believed about myself and the world around me. It hasn’t been at all easy, and I often wonder why I bothered to embark on this journey to begin with. It would have been much easier for me to stay sat in the comfort of the office that I had fallen into after working in the supermarket. The pull that was, and still is, inside of me to do something meaningful with this life however, proved to be too strong for me to ignore, and it’s what keeps me going when darkness falls along my path.

The practice of photography has brought a much needed sense of catharsis, and, through my creativity, I have been able to express many of the emotions that were repressed inside of me for decades. I feel as though each click of the shutter lightened my heavy burden somewhat, and I feel like a huge space has been created inside of myself which I can now take out into the world and offer to other people, so that they might unload some of their own baggage, too.

It is my belief that the process of photography, and the time that I have spent outdoors in nature, have proven to be two vital components in my journey to heal my relationship with Mother Earth, and the relationship that I had with myself, in turn, has healed and deepened extensively. I have learnt to love the sides of myself that I was once running from and doing my utmost to hide from the world. These parts of myself have been integrated into the version of me that stands here today, and I feel as though this is a much more complete, well-rounded, understanding, empathic, and loving version of myself. In allowing myself to exist fully, I believe that others are encouraged to do so when they are around me, and I have noticed it in many of the conversations that I have been having over the past year or two, in particular.

Recently, I have begun dreaming about a world in which we can all heal, and work towards becoming our best and truest selves. If we all worked towards this healing, and achieving a deeper understanding of self, doesn’t that allow us to further empathise with and understand the people surrounding us? What might that mean for this world? Instead of meeting people with judgment and criticism, maybe we could meet them with the same unconditional love that, through our own creative and healing processes, we have developed within ourselves. Perhaps then we will realise that any shortcomings might not be ‘them’ but the unconscious, unhealed, and unintegrated parts of ‘them’ coming to the surface. The parts of ‘them’ that is, perhaps, a result of their own unhealed trauma, inflicted upon them from their unhealed parents who simply lacked access to the knowledge that we have at our fingertips today.

I offer my own story as an anecdote for what Mother Nature can do for the human spirit and souls on this earth. I act as a mere conduit for what exists out there beyond this vessel that I find myself in. There is, I think, such a thing as a universal consciousness here on earth and through silence, stillness, grounding and creativity, I feel as though I am finding my own way to interpret and articulate the message that Gaia wishes to share with us human beings.

What I believe we need, is more awareness for the healing powers of Mother Nature, and understanding of the deep wisdom that she holds. That can only happen through conversation. It can only happen when people like me and you swallow our pride, face our fears, open up about some of the things that we have lived through that brought us pain and affected our consciousness, and share some of the lessons that we have learnt along our collective way. The lessons that I learn, I’m sure, can help you. The lessons that you learn, I’m sure, can help me. Together we learn. Together, we heal. Together, we create lasting change in this world, and, perhaps, make it a better place to exist in together.

Top Locations in Wales - A Landscape Photography Paradise

Welcome to Wales. Land of myth, legend, and folklore. A land that has been inspiring artists, writers and poets for generations, and I’m one of the latest in a long line of messengers waxing lyrical about its’ natural beauty. Having explored this enchanted land for years now, it is easy to see why so many people seek out this charming landscape for inspiration. The trees speak softly, the mountains stand guard like watchmen, and the rivers and lakes house fairies that will bring healing to your soul.

I’ve been a lover of The Lord of the Rings books and movies since I was a child, and now, having explored so much of this beautiful country, I see why Wales is credited with providing inspiration in so many different ways for Tolkien as he created his imaginary world. Even his Elvish language was inspired by the Welsh tongue.

Wales is a dream for any landscape photographer and, though relatively small in size, it offers something for every one who shows interest in landscape and nature photography. It has provided me with a constant source of inspiration over the past half a decade that I have been creating photographs, and these very lands have helped to heal many of my own wounds and brought a sense of peace to my soul. I still have so much ground to explore, so many photographs to create, and stories of my own to tell. Despite countless adventures to Eryri/ Snowdonia and seemingly walking every inch of my local mid Wales landscape, I sometimes feel as though I am only just scratching the surface of what this glorious country has to offer.

In this article, I want to introduce you to some of my favourite locations in Wales for landscape and nature photography that I have discovered so far. These are places that have, and still do, provide me with an incredible amount of inspiration for creativity and storytelling, and now I hope that I can inspire you to go out and unleash your creativity and tell your own stories of these wonderful places.

The Great Wood, Gregynog Hall - Mid Wales

I walked innocently into one of Wales’ most beautiful ancient woodlands, yielding my flask filled with coffee, books and camera. As I closed The Fellowship of the Ring for the last time, mounted my flask back into the side pocket of my bag and withdrew my camera, my hands rose to the heavens as beams of soft, golden light shone down on me through the canopy. It was an enlightening moment in my photography journey so far.

I credit this beautiful woodland in the heart of Montgomeryshire for changing the way that I do photography forever. In my initial years behind the camera, I could often be found running around from place to place, gathering photographs like a bee does honey. Finding these trees back in 2021 forced me to slow down and connect on a deeper level to the landscape that I found myself in. There was something very special about this patch of oak woodland and it made me feel emotions that I hadn’t experienced before. These trees played more than their part in inspiring my 2021 photobook titled, ‘A Year Amongst Trees’.

Some of the trees were planted back in the 18th century, and one of them was even standing when Henry VIII was reigning over the country. Walking between these gigantic trees for the first time was a rather special experience. I looked up in wonder as I marvelled at the sheer size of the ancient oaks that stand here on this ground, and felt an overpowering sense of insignificance at species that have been standing since the days of my great, great grandfather.

The woodland itself was used as hunting ground back in the day but now it’s left relatively untouched, bar a few sheep that sometimes wander the land, and the footsteps of myself and a few others that like to roam aimlessly amongst the ancient oak trees.

Autumn is, of course, the best time to visit most woodlands, in my opinion, and this one is no different. The bed of bracken and ferns is good enough to sleep on, and with fog and mist regularly filling the valley, you might just be treated to some of the best photography conditions that you remember, as I was on this magical autumn morning in 2021.

The sun rises quite lowly over the Montgomeryshire hills, and the light can be truly special if you care to be out early enough to capture it. Two or three of my favourite photographs have been produced here in this woodland after months of scouting and mornings spent walking meditatively between the old oak trees. I’m an advocate of the Japanese art of ‘shinrin yoku’ or ‘forest bathing’ to clear my busy mind and gain some clarity in my life, and there is no better place to take in the wonders of the woodland than right here in Montgomeryshire, in my opinion.

Photography Tip:

Try photographing with the camera pointing into, or at a 45 degree angle to the sunlight. Using mist in your photographs can be a perfect way to diffuse the sun and avoid blowing out those all important ‘highlights’ which will cause you to lose lots of detail in your imagery. Using the beautiful and soft morning light can provide some wonderful opportunities for photographs and maximise your chances of getting some of that all important fog or mist needed to create those beautifully atmospheric stories with your camera.

What I love most about this woodland is that every season brings with it plenty of new and exciting opportunities for photography. Just as you might be beginning to think that you have seen it all and expended all possible compositions, a change in temperature may make you think again before moving on to your next location. This woodland has kept me busy for two years already, and I’m sure that there are many more still to go.

Photography Tip:

If you are someone who bounces around from location to location in search of the next photograph, why not change your approach and try photographing one location for a while. You might be surprised to see how your vision evolves as you force yourself to look deeper into the landscape to find your next image.

For more tips on how to improve your woodland photography, click here.

Rhiwargor & Lake Vyrnwy - Berwyn Mountains, Mid Wales

I stood alone in the heart of the Berwyn mountains. Overnight, a sprinkling of snow had fallen, peppering the tops of the mountains that surround Lake Vyrnwy. As the water gushed down from Rhiwargor, past the ancient silver birch trees and along the grassy banks, I approached excitedly with my rucksack in tow.

I had one of those feelings that something special was going to happen that morning. The forecast looked good for some atmosphere and breaks in the cloud for light to enter the landscape. The scene had already stood out to me as one with a lot of potential during the autumn months that preceded. I knew that the snow-capped mountains behind were going to look special with the beautiful stream carrying the eye along the tree-lined embankment and out into the distance. What happened next, and for only a matter of seconds, could never have been predicted, and probably wont be seen again in my lifetime. A fleeting rain and snowstorm passed over my head. As it swept beyond and into the distant mountains, beneath which Lake Vyrnwy lies silently, a brief break in the clouds allowed the most gorgeous golden light to flood in from the east, backlighting the drizzle and sleet beautifully. The flash of burning embers brought to attention the silhouetted old guard of ancient silver birch trees that appear to be charging over the hill and away into the light.

You might be able to tell from this short piece of writing that this little corner of Lake Vyrnwy is up there amongst my favourite places to photograph out of all of them on this list. There really is something for everyone around this glorious part of the country. Whether you’re a tree lover like myself, or mountains and waterfalls are your thing, you aren’t going to be disappointed when you take a walk around Rhiwargor and Lake Vyrnwy.

Photo Tip:

Don’t be afraid to be a little curious whilst outdoors exploring, especially around Lake Vyrnwy, where some of the best photographs appear once you have veered away from the well-known footpaths. There is nothing quite like making your own tracks in this life, and photography has provided me with the perfect opportunity to do just that. I allow the camera to lead me, rather than me lead it, and the great outdoors will always provide opportunity for further exploration.

This part of the world is another of those that looks glorious throughout the seasons and offers plenty of variation when it comes to landscape photography. The area is a woodland paradise, and there are trees growing out of every nook and cranny on the hillsides that surround the lake and waterfall. There is an abundance of silver birch trees that line the slopes of the waterfall, and the colours that are on display throughout the autumn months are truly magnificent.

If you like photographing reflections then you may want to make a stop off at one of the small beaches or picnic areas around Lake Vyrnwy, where you’ll be presented with some truly remarkable compositional opportunities. First thing in the morning, the lake is often completely still and the reflections are perfectly mirror-like.

The Victorian water tower on Lake Vyrnwy makes for an interesting subject, appearing to be almost fairy-tale like; perfect for the stories of old witches and wizards like in Welsh folklore tales. There are many compositional opportunities for photographs of the tower. The main bridge at the south-eastern point makes for the more common angle, but I prefer to be a little more creative and make my own compositions these days. Sunset provides some incredible light, and sets beyond the Berwyn mountains that stand watch behind the tower. On a side note; you might want to look out for one of many walking routes that will lead you out onto the tops of the mountains surrounding Lake Vyrnwy. There are some terrific hikes to be found here and you could easily spend a few days in the area.

If you care to slow down and open your eyes widely enough as you make your way around the 12 mile stretch of road that runs around the lake, you might notice that there are some beautiful patches of native, deciduous woodland just waiting to be explored. This one, towards the easternmost point of the lake, holds promise for photographers and storytellers who are brave enough to ascend the steep banks and venture into the unknown. Some of the ancient oaks will make you feel as though you have been transported back in time; perhaps to a time when the Celts gathered around oak trees as part of their rituals and rites, sometimes even offering worship to a goddess of the oak tree, named Daron.

Photography Tip:

I like to look for a main protagonist in my woodland photographs occasionally. Characterful trees, like the one above, can help to tell a story, and every woodland seems to have at least one that stands out from the crowd like the ugly duckling.

Llyn Dinas & DINAS EMRYS | Eryri/ Snowdonia National Park

If wild swimming is your thing, be sure to watch out for a sharp pointy thing floating around in Llyn Dinas. Rumour has it that Excalibur, weapon of choice for King Arthur, might have been thrown into here back in the 6th century. Providing you don’t find that and make yourself a millionaire, you’ll want to wander the waters here on the lookout for photographs as it’s one of the most underrated places in Snowdonia for photography.

The light rises in the morning over the Moelwynion mountains; of which Moel Siabod is the tallest and can be seen at the northernmost point of the lake. It is just viewable, off centre to the right, in the photograph above. There are plenty of loose rocks and stones that make for some interesting features in photographs, and a few species of trees line the shores of the lake which can be added to your imagery to create the complete landscape photograph that will combine all of the elements.

If you managed to find the sword, you might want to keep it wielded as you cross the busy road to Craflwyn Hall, from which a footpath runs behind that will lead you to Dinas Emrys; birthplace of the red dragon.

It is rumoured that King Vortigern was building a castle on Dinas Emrys back in the 5th century which kept collapsing overnight because of tremors throughout the landscape.

Having queried it with his men, and failing to come to an answer to explain what was happening, King Vortigern was advised to seek the help of a boy that was born of a virgin mother. Vortigern sent his men out to search for such a boy and they eventually found Myrddin (Merlin) the wizard.

King Vortigern was going to offer Merlin’s life as a sacrifice but Merlin quickly advised him that the reason he couldn’t get his castle to stand was because two dragons were living inside of the hill, beneath the pool of water that, to this day, can still be found on Dinas Emrys.

The two dragons were awoken from their slumber and coaxed out from under the water. One was red and the other, white. They began to fight in the air above the hilltop. Eventually the white dragon fled, leaving the red dragon victorious, giving King Vortigern a new emblem for his flag, and a sign of the impending victory against the Anglo-Saxons.

Let thoughts of dragons, kings and wizards inspire you as your imagination runs wild atop this beautiful hilltop in north Wales. Sunrise makes for a beautiful time to visit, as the view towards the Moelwynions and over Llyn Dinas is one of the best in the area. Lining the western face of the hill as you walk to the summit is an enchanted oak forest, through which the winds blow and bring voices of Welsh baritones from afar.

If you’re a woodland photographer, then you’re likely to have a field day on Dinas Emrys; the trees are some of the gnarliest and most wicked in the national park, and there are many stories to be told of them.

Rhaeadr DDu & Ganllwyd - Eryri/ Snowdonia National Park

Rhaeadr Ddu, the beautifully quaint little waterfall in the southern region of Snowdonia translates as ‘Black Falls’ due to the appearance of the black stone over which the two-tiered waterfall descends. The short walk from Ganllwyd will lead you along a path next to which the Afon Gamlan runs through the Coed Ganllwyd National Nature Reserve. You’ll walk for no more than a mile, at which point you’ll be transported into a real life fairy-tale, surrounded by ancient, twisting oak trees, with the sound of the ever-changing waterfall for company. Visiting through different seasons will bring with it new conditions, as the water levels can change rapidly depending on rainfall in the area and surrounding mountains.

One of my favourite times to visit this fantastic and somewhat, underrated location has to be throughout the spring. I was lucky enough to capture the photographs below during the peak spring weeks in 2022 when the colours were at their vibrant best.

Waterfalls tend to look at their most spectacular after a few days of heavy rain, which does make for some great photographs. However, I prefer to shoot them when the conditions are a little calmer due to the look and feel that I tend to like in my photographs. My style reflects the more calming and peaceful moments as opposed to any chaos and drama. Perhaps this is how I feel when I’m outdoors in nature and therefore that is how I like my viewer to feel when looking through my portfolio.

I think that it’s very important to try to gain an understanding of yourself and some level of self-awareness as you progress through your photography journey. Spending time in beautiful places like this should make self-reflection incredibly easy, giving you plenty of time to think about the stories that you’d like to tell through your photography.

Photography Tip:

When photographing waterfalls, it might be worth attaching a circular polarising filter (CPL) to your lens. There are many places that CPL’s will work wonders for your photography but none will be transformed quite like a colourful autumnal or spring waterfall scene, where the effects of twisting the filter to your likening will bring out those beautifully vibrant orange, yellow and red colour tones and reduce the glare on the surface of the water, helping to add depth and mood to your image.

For more tips, I have a blog containing Ten Top Tips for Landscape Photography.

Waterfalls have to be up there among my favourite things to photograph. There is nothing quite like the feeling of excitement building as you hear the sound of the crashing water gradually getting louder as you approach. This little gem in Ganllwyd provides some really special ancient woodland with moss covered trunks and dry stone walls too, all of those will make for some fantastic subjects to photograph aside from the waterfall itself.

Photography Tip:

I like to keep my eye out for natural frames in the scene when photographing waterfalls like Rhaeadr Ddu. In the first image, you can see that I have been sure to include those twisting tree branches in the top of my frame, which help to keep the viewers eye pinned on my subject; the stunning waterfall. In the second photograph, I got down low to find a subtle leading line and natural path through the rocks to lead the viewer towards the waterfall, also making sure that I included those lime green spring leaves to add to the overall balance and story of the image.

If you cross the road after you have made your way back along the footpath from Rhaeadr Ddu, you’ll find yourself the most beautiful stretch of river that is lined with trees and peppered with rocky boulders. It might appear to you, as it does to me, to be yet another one of the pictures from Tolkien’s imagination, and it would be easy to sit and picture a herd of horses charging up the valley. You might want to break out your camera and tripod to grab a quick photograph before they do though. There are opportunities to attach your wide angle lens and get closer to some of the rocks, or use a mid range telephoto as I did here to scope out a segment of the river.

This stretch of river is best viewed in the morning, as the sun will rise over the hill to the east. My intuition tells me that late autumn and early spring could be a wonderful time to visit, as the sun will rise a little further round the hillside, providing you with some lower and, therefore, softer light for your photographs. This will also mean that the leaves are beautifully backlit, adding to that sense of dreamlike magic that Wales often provides.

A little further along the A470 in Ganllwyd is something of a hidden gem here in Wales. The Coed y Brenin forest boasts a number of waterfalls and if you’re willing to become a little bit more curious, then you might just discover something special like I did when I stumbled upon Pistyll Cain one winters’ afternoon. The waterfall is hiding away somewhere around a mile or so upriver from the Afon Mawddach. Here you can see a photograph from one wet and wild afternoon on which the wind was blowing the waterfall back up the gorge into which it falls.

St. Mary’s Vale & Sugar loaf - Abergavenny, Black Mountains

Tucked away in a quiet corner beneath the distinctive summit of the Sugarloaf, is a hidden world of twisting oaks and forgotten silver birch trees. The unforgettable St. Mary’s Vale is nestled away somewhere between the ridges of the Llanwenarth and Rholben hills. On one side of the valley, ancient oaks hang onto its’ steep sides, and silver birch pepper the ground too. On the other side of the Nant (stream) Iago, an ancient beech forest stands elegantly on the banks of the valley, and one step into here might make you feel like you have wandered into Lothlorien.

Maps of this small area around the Black Mountains show promise of plenty more native, deciduous woodland, and this is one part of the country that I am dying to explore more often. If photographing trees is your thing, then you can’t look far past the beautiful St. Mary’s Vale and surrounding areas in the south of Wales.

Once the morning mist has dissipated, be sure to wander along the footpath that winds between the ancient trees, which will lead you to the top of the unmistakeable Sugar Loaf; a 596m hill that is the southernmost of the summits making up the Black Mountains. From this hilltop, you’ll be treated to one of the finest views in south Wales, looking right out over the River Usk to the south, and Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons) to the west.

With this being Wales, you’re almost guaranteed to face some dynamic weather conditions, no matter when you visit, so be prepared with a variety of clothing choices, and also ensure that you have your camera at the ready because you might just witness a passing snow and hailstorm, and glorious, lateral light like I did in the photograph down below.

Moel Y Golfa - Mid Wales

Standing at 403m, it would be very easy to bypass this humble hilltop as you cross the England/Wales border to make your way towards some of the more popular spots in mid Wales, such as Lake Vyrnwy and Elan Valley. Many locals even often overlook this hilltop in favour of its’ neighbour; Rodney’s Pillar, of which, due to decades of quarrying, stands out in the landscape like a sore thumb from the west. Moel Y Golfa has been left relatively untouched by humans, bar the monument known by us from around the local area as ‘Gypsy’s Monument’. Atop the hill, you’ll be treated to some spectacular views of the Berwyn Mountains and even as far as Eryri/ Snowdonia out to the west. From experience, sunset is by far the best time to explore this landscape, and lateral light interacts beautifully with the unique rock formations on the summit. In summer, splashes of pink and purple paint the ground, in the form of heather which flourishes up here overlooking the mid Wales savannah.

Photography Tip:

Attach your wide angle lens and point it towards the ground up here to create some beautiful depth in your photographs. The rock formations on the ground are far too interesting and captivating to leave out. Look out for the lateral light at sunrise or sunset to add depth and natural contrast to your images.

You’ll want to come equipped with your telephoto lens if you are hiking to the summit of Moel Y Golfa as there is a terrific meander in the river Severn down below, which beautifully demonstrates how the river has formed over millenia and eroded through the landscape. Here in mid Wales, if you didn’t already know, we have an abundance of glorious oak trees that stand proudly in the fields and meadows. With a long enough lens, you’ll be perfectly placed to scope some of them out for those lone tree photographs that every photographer loves. Happy sniping folks.

Cors Bodgynydd & Llyn Bodgynydd - Eryri/ Snowdonia National Park

There are no fun stories of myths and legends around here, and that’s great because it means that it’s one of the lesser known spots here in Eryri/ Snowdonia. Maybe it will give you an opportunity to write your own story for the history books. The tree-line pathway below certainly looks as though it belongs in a fantasy story, don’t you think? I’ve had many relaxing mornings around this beautiful area over the past few years.

The sun sets beyond the Carneddau mountain range that provides the perfect backdrop for any landscape photographer. I love this location because it offers something different to your usual Snowdonia landscape. It isn’t exactly grand or epic like you might expect from the area, and instead offers plenty of poetic charm, similar to what you might see in a 19th century oil painting. The colours throughout the autumn months are truly spectacular, with an abundance of silver birch trees lining the outskirts of the lake, and colourful grasses and plants emerging from the water.

There is plenty of diversity to photograph in many different styles, with the mountainous backdrops allowing you to shoot wide and capture the whole scene, and the variety of tree species and plants giving you the option to break out a long lens and capture something a little more intimate.

Follow the footpath around the edge of Cors Bodgynydd and you’ll uncover something of a hidden gem called Llyn Bodgynydd, which provides this sensational view of Moel Siabod. Mornings are by far the best time to photograph this glorious location, with mists regularly shrouding the lake through the spring and autumn months.

Cnicht & Croesor - Eryri/ Snowdonia National Park

Standing proudly in isolation among the Moelwynion mountains, is Cnicht, often known as ‘The Welsh Matterhorn’, for its’ beautifully formed pyramidal structure when viewed from certain angles. Its’ name, Anglo-Saxon for ‘knight’ was given to it by medieval sailors who likened it to the shape of a 14th century knights helmet after they viewed it from the sea to the west, similar to the view that I had when creating the photograph down below in the summer of 2021.

Cnicht is one of the lesser photographed mountains in Snowdonia, and that’s absolutely fine with me. I love the challenge of finding unique and interesting photographs of the national park, and this area around Croesor and Nantmor offers plenty. To my eye, there aren’t many more perfectly shaped mountains in Snowdonia and I am very much looking forward to including it in my photography portfolio moving forwards. There are some spectacular patches of woodland around here, and I recommend that you lace up your walking boots and follow your nose on the hunt for your own unique compositions.

That is all for now in my latest photography location guide to Wales. I hope you have taken something away with you, and are feeling inspired to get out there in the landscape; to connect and create. Wales is a land that holds plenty of promise for photographs and stories and I hope that you enjoy creating yours. As you can tell by reading this, Wales has provided me with enough inspiration to last a lifetime, and I am sure that it will offer plenty more for me yet. As always; stay connected and creative, be curious, and go wherever your heart is leading you. It won’t often lead you wrong.

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If you like the locations in this guide, and are feeling inspired, then perhaps you might like to purchase my top 40 photography locations in Wales bundle down below, which will grant you access to my Google Maps saved pins, as well as a short eBook guide and some of my favourite hiking routes that are downloadable on the OS Maps app.

My Top 40 Favourite Photography Locations in Wales

£25.00

Get access to the locations of my top 40 favourite photography spots in Wales, mainly covering Eryri/ Snowdonia national park and mid Wales.

This download includes:

1. Access to a PDF eBook guide that contains a detailed description of many of the locations

2. Access to the KML Map data for all locations and instructions on how to install onto your Google Maps.

3. GPX file download containing routes for some of my favourite hikes in Wales, and instructions on how to install to OS maps mobile app.

4. Lifetime access, meaning I’ll email you whenever I update the map or eBook with new locations.

Please note that these downloads and links are for you personal use only. Please do not share as I have spent a lot of time and effort creating them.

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Relinquish Control

‘We must concern ourselves absolutely with the things that are under our control and entrust the things not in our control to the Universe.’

~ Musonius Rufus

When we are young, we struggle to even control our bodily functions, and we rely on our caregivers to keep watch over us. As we develop, we gain control over these functions, if we are lucky, but then we realise that we need help to control other areas of our lives such as our finances, our diets, and our weekly schedules, so we might take a course or hire personal trainers, coaches and personal assistants to help us. Most of our lives are spent pursuing control, in some way. The greatest of which, I believe, is the quest for control over our minds. In many cases, it is this lack of control that leaves people feeling the need to control others, and how often do we see this desire in the teacher that has lost their temper when they lose control of a classroom, in the coach who loses his mind when the team won’t perform as they have been coached, or even in the incessant alpha-type friend who doesn’t appreciate how you have tried to undermine his leadership by attempting to change the plans for your pack?

What I love most about nature photography is that so much of it involves relinquishing control to the outside events. We are taught humility on the grandest scale as we stand before Mother Nature with our preconceptions, hoping for ‘a little more light over here’ or ‘a touch of mist to blow in and cover that tree over there.’ I have lost count of how many times I have been out to one of my favourite locations with an idea in mind of what I want to happen, only to stand disappointed when nature throws me something unexpected to deal with and accept. On the other side of the coin, I can also count times when I have been out for a walk with zero expectations and faced some of the most extreme and unpredictable conditions that have resulted in some of the most interesting and exciting photographs in my portfolio, and generally exhilarating experiences of my life.

So many of my photographs are produced after months of scouting out locations, waiting patiently for colours to change, or for the conditions to fall favourably, or for me to connect emotionally to a place so much so that I might feel drawn to create a photograph to tell its’ story. I often find myself falling into the dangerous trap of forming my own preconceptions when it comes to my art. The desire to control how my images look, in the hope that they might be recognisable to others, might, perhaps, be limiting me in what I am able to see when out in the landscape.

There is a small portfolio of my work forming, however, from those days on which I have ventured outside and reacted impulsively to the conditions and the environment that I find myself in, with no idea of what to expect, and no previous experiences to teach me where might be best to stand. These are the days on which I feel as though I have relinquished most control. I have no choice but to succumb to Mother Nature who shows me just how powerful and frightening she can be. All of my senses are heightened and as the thunder claps overhead, and lightning strikes all around me, I spare a thought for the trees that have fallen victim to her over time; remnants of which stand like memorials on the nearby hills that I have walked, and I wonder what she might be able to make of me with just one strike of her electrically charged whips.

Aside from the technical workings of the camera, and my choice in which lens I attach, the only thing that I really have control over when outdoors in the landscape is myself; where I decide to stand, where I point the camera, what story I decide to tell, and whether I bother to put myself out there in the hope of capturing something at all.

In this instance, whilst walking in Eryri/ Snowdonia a few weeks ago, I noticed that I had been met with an inner conflict, and I had a choice to make. A little voice in my head was telling me to escape the storm and seek the comfort and security of the warm van that was waiting for me. My intuition, however, was telling me that something special was going to happen once the storm had passed over my head. I took a moment to silence the mental noise. I listened to the inner voice that was calling, and hurried over to this lonely oak tree that I had spotted on the walk up the mountainside earlier that day. You might find it strange when I say this, but trees often speak to me when I’m outside walking, and this one was calling my name as the rain began to fall.

Luckily, Mother Nature was on my side that day. She granted me a few precious moments with this tree that will live on in my memory for a lifetime. Moments for which I will be eternally grateful. I received yet another lesson from this journey that I’ll be able to take with me forever, and it was one in which I became the victor over myself, in my pursuit of my highest self.

In life, we can get caught up all too easily inside of our own thinking minds, perhaps becoming too identified with our egos which demand certain outcomes based on past experiences, opinions, future predictions, worries and fears. What being out here in these elements gives me is, of course, the ultimate sense of presence and complete oneness with the Universe. Relinquishing control of all outcomes and desires, I am merely an extension of this consciousness that surrounds my body. It takes me over. I become the observer of this very moment. No longer identified with my egoic mind, I tune into my intuition and senses; attuned to the magical light, connecting with the trees via breath, feet grounded firmly on the floor, raindrops falling from the sky and onto my delicate skin. All of this occurs and I notice a subtle shift in my energy. Over time, these subtle shifts, of course, compound to something magnificent. In these moments, I am something much bigger than ‘me’. I become Mother Nature herself.

What I crave most from this life is growth, and that goes above absolutely anything. If I am learning and acquiring wisdom, then I am at my best and most fulfilled. These lessons that I receive from Mother Nature are invaluable, as I look towards something to make up for the lack of a father figure in my life. She is, after all, our greatest teacher and many of the problems that exist within our world and society can be traced back to the fact that we are so out of alignment with her ways, blind and ignorant to the lessons that she has to teach.

The ancient wisdom that many of our ancestors left behind through philosophies such as Stoicism and Taoism, both of which draw inspiration from nature, seems to have been widely forgotten, as we generally choose to lead lives in which we remain relatively comfortable, pursuing nothing but profit in our pursuits of happiness. Discipline and self-control seems to be a thing of the past, most noticeably within our diets, as highly processed fast food is so easily accessible for most and anyone that prioritises eating well with home-cooked natural ingredients might, as from my own experience, be known as a ‘health freak’. The Stoics taught the game of self-mastery, of winning the mental battles that occur inside of all of our heads; doing the things that we don’t want to do because we know that the version of us that exists tomorrow will thank us for it.

As I stood on that mountainside, dancing bare—footed under stormy skies, dodging hailstones the size of blueberries, watching on with more than a little fear as thunder cracked above this wild and exposed landscape, flashes of lightning illuminated the sky and reminded me of just how little control I had over any of this environment. My body wanted nothing more than to return to comfort. My soul, however, was singing and dancing inside because it knows and understands that it has a purpose here on Earth to observe and create that makes any pain and discomfort somewhat bearable and, perhaps, even embraced. We humans build great civilisations that consume so much of this earths’ power and resources, yet Mother Nature could wipe them all out with one fateful strike of lightning in the right place. It is with the thought of this unfathomable power that I am reminded to remain humble, to succumb to Mother Nature, and to remember that my ability to control lies only within myself.

Photographing the Spirit within Trees

‘But this isn’t just a tree. It’s a spirit! How do you photograph a spirit?’

I knew I had my work cut out when a wonderfully excited lady posed this question to me on a recent workshop in Snowdonia. Me and the group had been wandering the national park already for around six hours when we passed an enchanting looking ancient oak tree. I was pretty keen to get us to the next location in time for a sunset but it seemed as though the tree had spoken to one of the attendees, and she pulled us up to register her interest in answering the call from within. She told me how beautiful she had found the ancient oak to be, standing alone, surrounded by an army of silver birch trees, and wanted to know how she might go about photographing it to tell its’ story.

Upon further investigation, me and the group quickly agreed that it was one of the most striking things that we had seen that day. The sentient oak was standing gracefully just above the track on a rocky outcrop, towering over its’ neighbouring sibling, laden with moss that was looking ever so vibrant in the early spring light, with its’ roots, partially on show, anchoring it to the earth, and its’ branches reaching, twisting and contorting into the vast, empty space above.

As I always do before thinking about the photograph, I patrolled the outskirts of the tree, silencing my mind, seeking connection with the subject. As discussed with the group earlier in the day, this step is vital to my creative process and, only very rarely, will I break out the camera to ‘snap’ a quick photograph before moving on. This connection to my environment, and the chosen subject, is incredibly important to me, much more so than any resulting photograph, as I seek to deepen my love of and connection with ‘Gaia’; the soul and life force of planet earth itself.

Whilst patrolling, I began talking to the group about potential stories to tell of the tree in its’ environment, looking at its’ shape and imagining movements, with imagination and storytelling now being a vital component in my own art. It was during this part of the demonstration that the attendee posed a question that hasn’t stopped circling my mind since that day. The kind of question that goes far beyond the surface level, technical camera jargon, and right into the depths of the art of seeing in photography;

‘How do you photograph a spirit?’

That was almost 2 months ago now, and I finally feel compelled and inspired to write after spending the past week at The Old Bell in Montgomery with my ‘A Year Amongst Trees’ exhibition, during which I was able to reflect deeply about my journey so far, and speak to many people about what the trees mean to me, as well as hearing some beautiful stories of what they mean to them, too. I found myself becoming engaged in many enlightening conversations about the deeper and more spiritual connection that we all seem to share with the trees in some way, and it appears as though I’m not the only one that reconnected with them, and Mother Nature as a whole, when the world shutdown back in 2020 and 2021.

A photograph of two trees in fog by Brad Carr.

TREES - FROM SPIRITUAL ROOTS

Take a walk outdoors almost anywhere in the world and you’re likely to be within reaching distance of a tree. Trees are literally everywhere, and they have been everywhere throughout history seemingly. If you read many ancient religious texts you are likely to come across trees that play a significant role in the story being told. Think of the ‘Tree of Knowledge’ in The Garden of Eden in Christianity and Judaism, and the sacred fig tree, or ‘Bodhi’ tree in Buddhism. The fig is also represented in Hinduism, too.

In mythology and folklore, stories of trees become even more interesting, however, and this is where we begin hearing stories of spirits within the trees. In Norse mythology, the entire universe centres around an enormous ash tree named Yggdrasil, from which came all of life itself. In Greek mythology, the oak is the sacred tree of Zeus, and it is through the rustling leaves of an oak tree that ancient Greeks would hear his voice echoing. Also in Greek mythology, a ‘hamadryade’ is a nymph or nature spirit that lives in trees and takes the form of a beautiful woman. If a tree was cut down by mortal beings, the gods would punish them, since the spirits within the trees were believed to die, too. In Celtic mythology and folklore, trees are widely celebrated beings, too, and some believed that we actually descend from them. Hazel trees are believed to be the first creation here on earth, and the oak tree makes up the symbol for the ‘Tree of Life.’ The Celts are thought to have gathered around oak trees as part of rituals and rites, and, at some stage throughout history, worshipped a goddess of the oak tree, named Daron.

In a recent article that I wrote, titled ‘Seeking Stillness’, I make reference to a particular lake that is lined with silver birch trees as the place that I withdraw to when I need to silence the noise of the outside world, and hear my inner voice clearly. The voice within, that might be referred to by some as ‘god’ is, perhaps, what the ancient Greeks were hearing when they sat beneath the rustling oak leaves all those years ago.

‘Exiled’ - A photograph by Brad Carr.

SEEING THE WORLD - A REFLECTION OF THE SELF

A large part of my own art relies on me turning trees into characters within my stories. This attribution of human traits and characteristics to trees is called, ‘anthropomorphism’, and is widely used throughout human psychology as a way of making sense of inanimate objects. I often look for movement in my characters, to tell better stories, too. In the photograph below, for example, that I titled, ‘First Dance’, I spotted a linking of the branches that created a narrative of the two sycamore trees waltzing across the hilltop and away into the warm, golden sunlight.

‘First Dance’ - a photograph of two sycamore trees by Brad Carr.

I’d like to transport us back to the beginning of 2021, around the time when I created ‘First Dance’ on a hilltop on the outskirts of Welshpool. It was a time of chaos and confusion in the wider world; especially if you had your eyes fixed on the news. In my world, it was a time of relative order and certainty. I felt a much needed sense of peace, tranquillity and stillness around my home for the first time in memory. Plenty of walks outdoors in the nearby Welsh countryside gave me the time and space to think deeply about my own place here on earth. It was throughout this time that I reflected on my own life, and retraced the steps of the spiritual path that I had been walking along for the past few years. It was a year for intense ‘soul searching’, if you like.

I found myself looking towards the trees and woodland, seeking sanctuary and healing; places for refuge and stability in my life. Many of the trees became ever-present characters in my life; most of them male to my imagination, and all of them, extremely patient, consistent, and wise. The consistency that these figures showed was something that I had never experienced in my early life, and I began building trust with a world that I found to be rather fragmented as I grew up and moved around the country between different homes. I am grateful to have connected with the trees on a much deeper and spiritual level throughout 2021, and I began to see them and photograph them in more than their physical form.

It was a year that changed me for the better (for those of you who know me, I am always one to look for the positives within any situation), as I was able to find my sense of self, and gain greater clarity of purpose and new direction. At the beginning of the year, I had recently left a place of employment within an industry that didn’t allow me to make use of my full arsenal of skills and gifts, and I felt as though I was now all alone on a stage, with a spotlight shining down on me.

‘Limelight’ - a photograph of a dead tree by Brad Carr

Many of the photographs that I produced throughout that year were heavily influenced by my nan, and came as a result of some of the stories that she told me at the end of 2020 that dramatically changed how I see the world, and served to reconnect me with the child inside. That child was, perhaps, a little more in tune with his own ‘spirit’ or ‘soul’ than later versions of me were. My nan’s use of her imagination; of looking within for the stories, instead of outside, her daring to be different, and showing enough courage to share some of her innermost thoughts; parts of her own soul, perhaps, had an impact on me that runs deeper than she will ever know. I began looking at the world with my minds’ eye instead of limiting myself to the two that most of us have always known.

It is my belief that messages are sent to all of us along our way through life, and it is up to us to be open enough to receive and implement them. One of my messengers came in the form of a sweet elderly lady in a blue knitted jumper, who came to sit next to me on Boxing Day of 2020 to look through some photographs of big rocks in Scotland. She saw faces in those big rocks, and she saw children playing beside a stream in another of the photographs. They weren’t there in my world, but who’s to say that she was wrong? Perhaps my nan, as well as that childhood version of me, had a stronger connection with the spirit that lived inside. As Anais Nin so eloquently put it,

“We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are”

The Spirit Within

So, perhaps one of the first steps to take if you wish to ‘photograph a spirit’, is to find, or strengthen the sense of spirit within yourself. Maybe that will require going off on a personal mission of your own with your camera, and a pen and paper in hand to make sense of the story that you want to tell to the world. To understand this, we need to look inwards, so that we might be able to gain a deeper understanding of who we are, what has shaped us, and what series of events has led us here to this moment behind the camera? Looking inwards to better understand ourselves, allows us to better understand others, and in turn, this means that we can better understand this world that we inhabit; trees, lakes, rivers, mountains, and all.

Perhaps we might take a leaf out of my nan’s book, and reconnect with the childlike version of ourselves; the one that exists in its’ purest form, is wildly curious, rich and vibrant in spirit, and lives inside of its’ own imagination. When we have done this, maybe then we can begin to create photographs about things, rather than of things. In one sense, these are all, of course, photographs of trees. Look below the surface and you’ll see that they are photographs about trees, hence the reason why I like to offer titles and narratives to lots of my photographs, and, if you look a little bit deeper still, then you might see that they are photographs about myself, too.

‘A Gathering of the Tribe’ - A photograph by Brad Carr.

Maybe, by connecting with whatever it is that exists beyond this physical form of ourselves, we will start to see ‘beyond’ in the beings in the world that surrounds us. Perhaps we can learn from films such as ‘Avatar’, and connect with the trees beyond merely hugging them.

In ‘Avatar’, director James Cameron portrays a giant willow-like tree, called ‘The Tree of Souls’ on the planet ‘Pandora’. It is a tree that is of extreme importance to the native ‘Na’vi’ clan because it is the point of closest connection to ‘Eywa’ (or as we humans might prefer to call ‘Gaia’), the planets’ life force, or soul. In the film, the clan are seen to gather at the tree and connect their ‘queues’, a kind of tail from the head that houses a set of tendrils that, when connected with one of the ‘queues’ that stem from the roots of the ‘Tree of Souls’, enables mental communication between all connected entities simultaneously, and allows for the sharing of information, which includes emotions and memories.

It is from this wonderful film that we can see a representation, albeit from one mans’ imagination, of what a raising of collective ‘consciousness’ might look like. Maybe through visits of our own to one of our favourite sacred trees or areas of woodland, can we seek to become more ‘conscious’ ourselves, and connect with that special something that exists beyond our bodies that serves to make this human experience so fascinating and beautiful. Maybe then we can begin to look at ourselves as more than just a physical body walking across this earth, and realise that we are all connected to something that is much bigger than us.

The past half-decade or so, for me, has been something of my own spiritual journey; one that has helped me to connect with the deepest parts of myself and uncover some more of my own soul. It has also forced me to ask many questions to try to understand more about this existence beyond what we see represented in the physical plain. I believe that frequent visits to some special places here in Wales, and time spent amongst some truly wonderful woodland within that time, has helped me to become more ‘conscious’ as a human being. With more time in nature, I have become more attuned to and accepting of the sensitive side of my personality and I find that I can better empathise with and understand myself. With that, many of my relationships have, therefore, become much deeper and richer, and that includes my relationship with Mother Nature, and the spirit or soul that exists within all beings; in particular, the trees to which I have developed a special affinity. The further I seem to walk along my own way, learning about myself as I go, the deeper and more interesting the narratives in my photographs appear to become. By looking inward, I see more on the outside. By getting closer to the spirit on the inside, I believe that I’m getting closer to the spirit that exists within this world.

“I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.”

~ John Muir

The Cold Winter Air

I inhale deeply. The cold winter air fills my lungs. With each breath I spare a thought for the trees that provide me with life here on earth. I’m surrounded by a variety of tree species, and amongst the trees, I feel like one of them. There are Scot’s pine marching up the hill behind me; some appear to have been standing for over a century, overlooking the mid Wales savannah that surrounds me and this hill.

The pine trees aren’t alone. I pass by a splendid, mature beech tree that is keeping them company, and there are plenty of hawthorn, rowan and countless old oak trees; an abundance of which have set their roots down in the surrounding valleys, a few hundred metres below the ground on which I stand. Their roots may well be down below, but their crown and branches reach heights that I never will. I feel humbled as I contemplate the feats of Mother Nature, and how any of my achievements will never compare to hers.

Dawn is breaking and, despite my unrelenting desire to stay in bed this morning with a flu, I am here, and I get to enjoy the good tidings that she brings for those who silence the negative voice that lives inside of their heads; the one that seeks nothing but the comfort and security of a blanket on cold, winter mornings. Out here, I couldn’t be further from what that part of myself desires. Even the trees are frozen; white over with a stubborn hoar frost that is clinging firmly to their branches, and yet, they still wake to the warm embrace of the sun’s golden light and go about their duty.

The thought of this reminds me of my own duty; to create photographs and stories, and explore what it means to be a human being; to give life to others in the only way that I know; by sharing my emotions and, hopefully, allowing people to feel something when I do. In the same way that I have been given this gift through music, films and stories throughout my short life so far, I feel a great need to give back to a world that has given me so much already. I’m being pulled by a force far beyond myself to share my love for this planet and bear the fruits from the garden that I have been growing inside of myself.

I am reminded of our nature by the trees who give without asking, grow continuously, take only what they need, shelter us humans from storms, share their wisdom with the young, and listen without judgment or opinion.

I’ve made friends with so many of them recently and up here, I shake hands with some new companions and quietly introduce myself. Beneath us, a sea of fog has advanced overnight. As the sun rises to the east, the tide begins its’ steady retreat, revealing a frozen army of trees, icy blue like the sea herself, fossilised on her bed.

My eyes are drawn immediately to a distant hilltop. A copse of trees stand alone above the fog, glistening in the soft, morning light that kisses the tops of their branches, gently waking them from their sleep. My thoughts fall silent. I breath in the crisp, winter air and take a moment to appreciate the spectacle that I’m witnessing. The fog performs its’ dance in the valleys down below, revealing new characters with each routine. It is moments like this that strengthen me enough to fight off the voice inside, keeping me enthused to go outdoors in pursuit of creativity with my camera.

On these mornings, all of my senses are aroused. My nostrils are filled with rich, earthy aromas, my eyes drawn to light and colour, and sometimes, I remove my shoes to connect fully with the earth, and feel mud between my toes.

I find myself ‘here’, experiencing life fully, not focused on the things that I haven’t done, or worried about where I ‘should’ be in life. I look around me, marvelling at the beauty of the planet that I find myself on, and I feel like a part of something much bigger.

As hard as I try to stay present, my mind can’t help but wander off as I stare into the distance at the copse of trees. I’m transported to past adventures; of being perched up against an old oak tree in the safe embrace of a silent woodland, coffee in one hand, camera in the other. I think back to some special mornings that I spent in the grounds of Gregynog Hall back in 2021, and of many hours spent weaving myself between ancient, decrepit silver birch trees in forgotten corners of Snowdonia National Park.

I can hear the feint tapping of a woodpecker echoing somewhere in the valley. My heart yearns to run towards the sounds but, like all good things, my morning must soon come to an end. I set up the camera, and freeze this moment forever. It’s a photograph that will last; one with a story that I can tell of my home for a lifetime.

This part of Wales rarely gets the credit it deserves for its’ natural beauty, often being overshadowed by grander areas such as Snowdonia and Pembrokeshire. In pockets, mid Wales has areas that are equally as beautiful. Trees dominate the gentle landscape and my recent affection for the woodland has made me look upon my home with a new set of eyes. The peaks aren’t quite as dominant across the skyline here as they are further north and instead, the landscape weaves together like a blanket, rivers threading between the bumps as they retreat peacefully to the sea. These places will be missed, but I feel the need to follow the ways of the river and make haste towards the sea. I pack away my camera and pour a coffee from my flask. I didn’t know it at the time, but this would be the last photograph that I’d create of home.

I’ll be moving on towards a new home in January. I have been feeling myself being pulled away in search of some new adventures. As a child, I moved around from place to place, living in eight different homes by the time I was a teenager. The desire to travel is strong inside of me. I’ll be starting mine with a move back to my University town of Aberystwyth a month from now. New faces, new places, new projects and the chance to build a relationship with the raging sea. The trees have taught me so much over the past two years. I’m sure that the sea can teach me something new.

The Art of Curiosity

Life as I know it could be entirely different right now if it wasn’t for one simple act of curiosity; of listening to an impulsive thought that came from beyond the ego.

It came back on a morning in the summer of 2018. A friend of mine had asked me to go out to visit one of our local beauty spots; a waterfall called Pistyll Rhaeadr set in the heart of the Berwyn mountains here in mid Wales.

I was going through a stage of transition in my life; the end of a relationship had created a domino effect of change. I changed my job, began coaching an Under 16’s football team for the first time, made new friends, and committed to transforming my body and mindset through long and arduous gym workouts.

My new path was clear; I would become a bodybuilder and personal trainer and spend the rest of my life teaching others what I had learnt. That was until I walked past my sister’s bedroom that morning and caught sight of something glistening on her shelf.

I had spent the last 18 months posting photographs and videos of myself in the gym to the Internet. I would share my dumbbell presses, squats and before vs after photographs; me at 19 years of age weighing 8 and a half stone vs me at 26 years of age weighing 12 and a half stone. The art of bodybuilding had me feeling curious about the human body; our potential for growth, change and transformation.

Through the bodybuilding process, I learnt the power of discipline, grit, resilience, and, most importantly, of listening to the voice that exists inside of all of us, behind our egos; the voice that Carl Jung would call ‘The Self’. There was something beyond ‘me’ that was pulling me to post these photographs and videos to the Internet. The same thing pulled me towards the glistening object that was sitting on my sisters shelf that morning. That object was a camera.

As far as I remember, I’ve had a mindset that has been focused on growth and improvement. When I was a child and into my teens, I would spend most of my days playing computer games. I became obsessed with role-player games, and the idea that I could level up the characters that I had adopted in-game. I carried this mentality into my adulthood, albeit, at times, it lay dormant. My ventures into the gym brought it back to life and I remember thinking that the camera would be the perfect tool to level up the photographs that I was taking to tell the story of my transformation.

Little did I know at the time that answering the call of curiosity inside of me, and picking up that camera would change the course of my life forever.

On that first visit to Pistyll Rhaeadr, I encountered plenty of what Steven Pressfield, in his book ‘The War of Art’, calls ‘resistance’. As with all of us, I have my fair share of demons trying to hold me back; one of which comes in the form of a step father who would abuse me whenever I expressed my feelings or emotions. Photography would never have been encouraged by such a man when I was young, so there was always this idea that it wasn’t the kind of thing that a ‘man’ did in this world. I’d also never worked a camera before, I had nobody to show me how to use it, and no manual to guide me either. All of the settings were foreign to me, and it would have been easy for me to give up trying to figure out the formula for a successful photograph, but ever since I was young, I had a knack of picking things up and making them work.

With the camera set in its’ ‘manual’ mode, I went about pointing it at everything; indoor plants, my friends tuna sandwich from the café at Pistyll Rhaeadr, my friend himself, and the waterfall. I also did what every ‘Instagrammer’ would do and took a photograph of my feet dangling over the edge of the 240ft drop.

It wasn’t until I got home that night, that I realised most of my mistakes. The photograph of my feet was out of focus, and most of the others were completely black or white because I didn’t understand how to make use of different shutter speeds.

I put one toe into the Internet rabbit hole by asking the simple question, ‘how can I take better photographs’. A huge rabbit came and pulled me under. I haven’t been able to escape since.

‘The more you know, the more you know you don’t know.’ 

— Aristotle

My personal trainer studies were placed on hold because I couldn’t resist the urge to go out into the world to put what I’d learnt into practice. One adventure outdoors would lead to ten questions, each one of them to ten more. What initially started out as me learning about how to work the camera led to me learning about the landscape that I found myself in. Learning about the landscape posed new questions about myself.

The camera quickly became a tool for self study and a vehicle to share what I was learning with the world.

Five years on, and I am here. I don’t know exactly where that is in comparison to where that may have been, had I ignored that little urge inside of myself to pick up the camera back then.

I guess that the inner voice is something that we all ought to try to tune into a little more often. I believe that it speaks to us in the form of our emotions and feelings. I retreat to nature so often to get a better idea of what it is trying to tell me. If we listen to society, perhaps we may find ourselves being discouraged from doing so. Humans are natural conformists. We tend to walk in the direction of the crowd, through fear of being rejected from the tribe, or worse, being made fun of for being ‘different’. We crave acceptance. The child that puts his/ her hand up to often in school is often shamed for asking too many questions by the ‘cool kids’ who want to hurry up and get out of the class to go and play.

Humans are also naturally curious. We all want to understand things, learn about new topics and acquire new skills. I remember picking encyclopaedias up off the shelf at the age of three or four years old and scanning them cover to cover to learn about this world and everything within it. I often wonder, at what age did I begin to lose my curiosity? Well, I guess that the emotional abuse that I received from my stepfather didn’t help. He was a man who never could accept me as I was and tried to mould me into something else. I also remember receiving some criticism from a friend in school when I sang a song, and so I stopped because I believed more in what he said than what was on my own heart.

Curiosity is something that needs to be nurtured and trained, like a muscle. It is particularly important that we encourage it in children. Leonardo Da Vinci, a man known for his multitude of talents that stretched far beyond the artwork that most people know him for, would use his journal to nurture his own curiosity; regularly sketching, drawing, recording observations that he made on the street that day, and asking himself all sorts of questions that he would then go on to answer. He famously prompted himself to ‘describe the tongue of a woodpecker’, before proceeding to dissect a woodpecker later on in his life to scratch his own curious itch.

Exercising my own curiosity muscle as an adult has led me to some of the most beautiful places that Wales has to offer. I found the location of ‘Eden’ by stepping foot off a dusty track that appeared to have been walked by herds of sheep for centuries and into an overgrown and, as far as I know, unknown paradise.

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when one contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvellous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries to comprehend only a little of this mystery every day.”

— Albert Einstein

Training curiosity requires discipline, and we can all find our own ways to exercise it. I find myself intentionally practicing being curious throughout my days now. I believe that my photographs of tomorrow are a result of what I subject my mind to today. I want to learn about the world, and the people within it; therefore I make a point of finding out about all kinds of weird and wonderful topics, and I’ve trained myself to find out more about people, too. I was once a kid who hid from the world behind his mother when out in public, but I make sure that I do all I can to be the opposite of that child now because I’ve seen how important it is to learn about everything and anything.

Thankfully, I picked up a dumbbell a few years ago out of curiosity, transformed my physique, and developed self-confidence and self-belief. This led me to pick up a camera and gave me the confidence to release my work into the world. Now I feel that the same force is pulling me to write.

Resistance still regularly tells me to ‘stop! Because you don’t know who is watching and judging.’ But, I was always curious to see where this path might lead. Now I am here, and I don’t ever want to go back. I just want to see what’s waiting for me around the next corner.

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