Photo story - Nature on Our Doorstep

I could hear the rain battering the window as I give the camping gear a shove back into the cupboard and pick through two weeks of clothing that has seen me through intense sun, relentless rain, some gales and everything in-between. I look up to see Monty’s expectant face - it doesn’t matter whether we’re in Dartmoor, Dorset or the middle of Brighton to him - a walk is ready to be had. 

Lacing up my walking boots and starting the descend up the hill into the woodland at my local park - Stanmer Estate - I become conscious of a certain apathy towards the familiar. With the rugged vistas of Dartmoor and the dense forests and gorges we met along the way it’s easy to take for granted the places that have their own merit but I’ve seen numerous times. 

It happened that on my way out the door I grabbed my camera and as I climbed that hill I made the intention to use it to notice nature in my familiar space. And it got me thinking - if we commit the mindset to it, in a way it’s easier to notice the nuance and subtlety of nature in the spaces we know well because we are already friends with the vistas so we’re not distracted from the smaller details that may have just passed us by. 

As I waited with my focus locked on a droplet about to fall from a berry (I missed it) I had the thought that it doesn’t take us to go to a new or impressive place for us to unlock the nurture that nature gives us. I wonder if it’s noticing the minute details that is nurture - the exhilaration from a dramatic landscape is a different feeling to the one we get from seeking out and observing the quieter banality of the smaller details. Like the shapes the dripping rain has made, the graduation of colours, another season of life coming to an end in autumn, the unfurling of a fern in spring, or the life growing out of the decaying tree trunk.

The gentle nurture on our doorstep is there for the taking and sometimes it takes us to allow our eyes and brain to be conscious to unlock it. A camera works so beautifully in this way because it’s a tool to see it through a different perspective. Of course, you don’t need a fancy camera to enjoy nature like this, a phone camera can be your accompanying tool as well.

I invite you to go out this weekend, it doesn’t have to be far, put your phone on airplane mode so you’re not disturbed and see what you can observe with the camera. When you get home open your journal and write a few words on what you were feeling as you recorded some details on nature. How you felt when you got home and maybe even post a photo with a description of why you took it. 

I would love your help - let me know how you go, what you find nurturing about being in nature and how you personally connect with it. I’m so curious as to our own individual connections and what an impact giving ourselves space to allow nature to nurture us haves.