How Photography Helps Mental Health

How Photography Helps Mental Health

PLEASE NOTE – This blog was written with the help from a new writer that I’ve contracted to help produce more content for my site. You’ll notice little side comments or additional thoughts of my own periodically. I’m a photographer, not a writer. The pictures in all of my blogs are my own, unless otherwise stated.

(According a study by An International Journal of Medicine, mental health problems increased in this pandemic due to general fear and constant anxiety about the COVID-19 epidemic. The media is seen as a significant contributor to this dilemma. In particular, tragic stories about the effects of the virus intensify despair and melancholy.

The study identified several mental health effects that increased rapidly during development, including depression, frustration, anxiety, stress, and anxiety.

 

Daniel Conerd Photography

How Photography helps mental health

Photography is one of the best and most accessible therapeutic activities. Opposing to popular belief, the equipment required to enjoy photography is minimal. The essential requirement is a camera, and most modern smartphones are already equipped with a camera that produces high-quality shots. (Unless you’re still living in 1995 with your nokia flip phone.)

Photography carries out a positive habit of self-care.

During quarantine, I found myself joining in on the “Take one picture everyday” challenges or the here is a photo prompt, now go create. The new habits that can be formed can really help to motivate you to get out of a creative rut and in turn, helps to improve your overall self-care. The process itself is therapeutic as the brain becomes busy and refreshes psychological well-being.

Photography facilitates interaction with the community

Making valuable connections can greatly improve a person’s well-being. You can meet new people with the same interests by taking pictures and sharing them with communities such as social media groups. Photography is a common foundation for creating conversations, making connections, and ultimately finding support for fighting depression. Now I know this has been quite difficult in 2020, but as the pandemic inches closer to being a thing of the past ( or at least I hope so ) then photography workshops, Instagram meetups, and events, in general, will slowly start coming back and allowing us all to get back together to get creative again.

 

New Zealand Vineyard Image

 

Photography can help you recall the joys of life

A photo can capture a unique moment. The images you take will help you regain your memories of the past and the positive thoughts that accompany them. “Take a look at this photograph, every time it makes me laugh.” Chad whatever his last name Nickleback is.. lol. but Chad might be right on this one.

Photography can help heal

When taking a picture, the brain works to maintain the cognitive demands of the activity. The creative process becomes a brain movement that helps improve episodic memory and improve reasoning skills. I know when I’m trying my best to put together a product shoot and I’m working with limited space or materials, I can feel like I’m trying to solve the world’s hardest math problem.

Photography keeps you moving

Taking a picture not only trains the brain but also moves the body to burn calories. Photographers are usually looking for suitable subjects. Whenever I’m out and about with my camera, I always find myself moving in all kinds of different positions to get the perfect shot. I might not be burning calories, but I know my hammies are burning after a long photoshoot!

The love of photography

Photographers are usually attracted to something interesting to them. ( Yeah, no shit)  This makes it easier for people to focus and connect to meaningful subjects. Taking beautiful pictures makes it more rewarding. I’ve always found it best for my own mental health to allow myself to do something that I want to do that doesn’t involve an adult responsibility and photography has always been that thing for me.

 

Cape Cod Lighthouse

 

Appreciate the beauty of hidden things through photographs

Pictures let you see the world with different eyes. Not only for situations and places that might otherwise be impossible to explore but also for the angle of the photo itself. The seemingly dull objects and scenes of everyday life can draw attention. In the photo series, you can approach objects from different angles and appreciate them in every aspect. This parallax perception (viewing an object from different angles and perceptions) is a powerful force in photography.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness can be an essential element of mental health. Usually, when you talk about it, you will think about meditation and yoga. But I like to say that I find a different level of meditation when I’m behind my camera.

This is the time to evaluate your spiritual landscape. Encourage a state of attention to your surroundings and your thoughts. Whenever you bring awareness to your senses, you are deliberately aware. It’s like pressing the reset button for a moment and taking a breath to pay attention to the sensory experience. Mindfulness has been shown to reduce stress, rumination, working memory, concentration, and self-intuition.

Continue Reading: The benefits of photography on mental health, perspective, and life.

The bottom line

As the pandemic continues, many find it very difficult to enjoy life. It’s good that there are many ways to get out of a depressed mood and keep looking at life positively. What it comes down to is that you just have to keep on keeping on, LOL. If you love photography, then pick up your camera and go take some pictures!

Do you have an idea for a project? Contact me here.

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What are NFTs – Photography vs Cinematography

What are NFTs – Photography vs Cinematography

What in the hell is an NFT anyway?

For starters NFT stands for “Non-fungible token”, okay cool… but what does that even mean? The best way to think of an NFT is to think of it as a unique proof of ownership over a piece of digital art or even a video clip. It’s a one-of-a-kind piece of code, that is then stored and protected on a shared public exchange. If you aren’t familiar with the blockchain, Bitcoin, or Ethereum. I would recommend starting with these articles first.

What is Bitcoin?

What is an NFT? The trendy blockchain technology explained

I’m going to admit that I’m still very new to NFTs, and even though I have been watching the crypto space for the last 5 years, I am only going to touch upon this vast subject as I am still learning along with everyone else. If any of the information in this post is extremely incorrect, please let me know at hello@danielconerd.com.

 

Photography vs Cinematography as it relates to NFTs

 

NFTs are unique digital assets and they can be compared to a sort of a cryptocurrency token similar to Bitcoin. But they differ significantly. Bitcoins can be swapped for other tokens, NFTs remain unique. They are a way of selling artwork over the Ethereum blockchain. The transactions retain the uniqueness and ownership of NFT.

The NFT buying process imitates the real world. Buyers purchase a unique, authentic digital copy just as they would for a physical art form. The purchased copy can further be resold in the future to earn a profit. People can use the blockchain technology to create unique contracts and decentralize the fund flow. It is like creating IP-based crypto contracts that help monetize different digital arts efficiently.

 

Photography perspective

As a photographer, you are only selling a picture or digital files of your art. This is different from the conventional selling of rights or prints. Photographers see it as an opportunity to reach their patrons passionate about their digital art and are willing to pay for it.

Once you sell your art for an NFT, you also get the option to receive a resale percentage for any future resale of their art. It is like a permanent link to royalty for sales of your art. The striking feature of blockchain is its transparency and traceability for all transactions.

A photographer gets to choose the number of digital files (copies) they wish to release for their art.

Ever since the beginning of photography, photographers have faced art forgery but, NFT Blockchain makes digital forgeries extremely difficult. The information regarding the origin and ownership of the NFT can easily be attained via the blockchain.

NFT marketplaces like Rarible and Foundation are the equivalent of Shopify and Etsy. There are a ton of other ones to choose from as well, but those are the two that I find myself browsing through the most.

 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by Ivana Desančić (@ivanadesancic)

Local Asheville fine art photographer: Ivana Desancic has a few of her pieces for sale on Foundation

Cinematography perspective

It is certainly a boost for independent filmmakers who can directly monetize their digital assets without the need to go through conventional channels and harness contacts. While photography is limited to selling only the NFTs for their digital assets, cinematographers have a lot of stuff in the ‘related’ category like – film stills, scripts, posters, and other collectibles. Lebron James just sold a video for over $200K, along with a video clip that the artist named Beeple sold for $67,000, which was later re-sold for $6.6 million dollars! Spotify disrupted the music industry and brought about a fresh revenue stream for the records. Similarly, NFTs are expected to develop a new revenue stream for the film industry.

 

 

 

This is just a quick cinematograph that I created. I’ve dabbled with creating cinematographs in the past, but I never really pursued it. I might have to revisit this art form more!

The NFT craze is massive and right now everyone is trying to speculate on where it’s headed and if it will be something that will stick around. As of right now, I currently don’t have any NFTs for sale. I am however very curious to see what the future holds for digital creators.

Do you have an idea for a project? Contact me and let’s create something today!

 

I’m going to admit that I’m still very new to NFTs, and even though I have been watching the crypto space for the last 5 years, I only just touched upon this vast subject as I am still learning along with everyone else. If any of the information in this post is extremely incorrect, please let me know at hello@danielconerd.com.

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