Here are five reasons why I love nature photography. 1: It’s Relaxing and Lowers StressGetting out and taking photographs can give you a break from the everyday worries of your life. It can be relaxing and can help you overcome stress, anxiety, and depression.
2: You Get Outside and Get Exercise If you like photographing landscapes and nature, you can cover a lot of distance in search of good shots. And, you tend to climb up things to get better vantage points. And stretch up and bend down. So, on an average photo excursion, you may well walk several kilometres, climb, bend, and stretch as well as soak in some healthy sunshine and breathe the fresh air. Which is great for both body and soul.
3: You See Familiar Places in a Different Way
I enjoy walking and walk a lot. Walking is good exercise and a great stress killer. Suddenly, you start noticing light and shadow and repeating patterns, and lines that lead to a subject you want to shoot. You crouch down low to get shots from a different point of view. Or climb up something for the same reason. You see the same scenes and objects that you see each time you walk that route, but this time you see them as elements in a composition and imagine what they might look like in a finished photograph.
4: You Visit Places you Would Never Normally Go
My desire to photograph things has taken me to other places that I never would have ventured to. I’ve clambered up steep embankments, across rocky fields, and down hidden tracks seeking different viewpoints to shoot from. These little deviations from the norm are enriching and photography gives me such opportunities all the time.
Those Wow Moments When you Review your Images
So, you’ve uploaded the images from your latest photo excursion to your computer and you are flipping through them for the first time. Your internal dialogue goes something like this as you move from one image to the next: Meh, meh, hum, maybe, oops, that’s ok, good, meh, meh, uh oh, meh, that’s ok, meh, ………. oh WOW! There it is, the image that — for whatever reason — really grabs your attention and gives you immediate pleasure and instant gratification.
Maybe the photo is not destined to win any contests and an expert could point out technical faults and things you could have done better. Doesn’t matter! Looking at it makes YOU feel good and you feel proud that you took it. Enough said!