MikeChesworth Photography

If you are on YouTube, Twitter or Facebook and a photographer, you have probably seen a number of videos or articles on the benefits of Photography on mental health. I wasn’t sure to post this blog, as I didn’t want to be seen to be jumping on the bandwagon, or using mental health as a way to promote a website or YouTube channel. After much thought, I decided I would share the way that photography helps me to deal with my mental health.

In this series of blogs, I want to take you behind the scenes of an image each week, describe my reasons for taking the shots and what I was thinking when creating the image.

In my first post I want to take you back around 15 years ago, to the first shot I took that I was 100% happy with, not only technically but artistically too.

If you have watched one of my vlogs you may have seen that I shoot using a Micro Four Thirds camera specifically an Olympus OMD Em1ii. This system has gained a reputation for being an inferior choice to some other systems out there. So why do I still shoot Micro Four Thirds?

If I was to make a list of the places I want to photograph in the UK, one of the top places would be the Lake District. If you’re not in the UK or unsure where the Lake District is, the Lake District is one of the UK’s National Parks situated in the North West of England.

I have been wanting to visit the Lake District for quite a while, but its a place that I have never visited to photograph. I do have vague memories of visiting when I was younger but its a place that I don’t remember much about.

Over the last few weeks, life has got in the way of shooting. I, like many of my fellow photographers, do this as a hobby, and have a day job to support the photography.

We are at that funny time of year where it gets lighter later and darker earlier, and the perfect time to go out shooting is probably the time when you’re at your desk, grafting away to fund that next photography trip(Unless you are lucky enough to do this full time, then good on ya!) . Here are a few pointers to squeeze in a bit of photography during the day.

I’ll be the first to confess that there are days, when I don’t feel like going out shooting, days where I go out and that feeling doesn’t get me and I go home with shots that are a bit meh!

One of the techniques I use to get me out taking pictures is to plan a project or at least go out with some sort of plan of what I want to shoot. I find by doing this, I don’t waste hours trying to find a composition or place to shoot. Let’s discuss how a project helps me find inspiration in my photography.