Photo Set: Forest Therapy

Forest ther­apy is the only ther­apy I know.

And before you think it: Yes, I know. Celebrating spend­ing time in nature is such an urb­an thing to do. 

Still, I’m sure it isn’t just a con­cep­tu­al­ised hip­ster idea. 

Something drives us, my cam­era and me, back into the forest. Whatever it is, it’s more than a trend. It’s primal.

When I did my mil­it­ary ser­vice, I hated the forest. Always hungry, tired, sweat­ing, and mov­ing from one place to the next. Always cold.

As if being hungry, tired, sweat­ing, and on the move were ter­rible things. And being cold? These days, I take ice baths to feel alive.

The only inher­ently lousy con­di­tion is not surviving.

But at the time, I was too young to appre­ci­ate nat­ur­al envir­on­ments. The allure of blink­ing cit­ies brim­ming with tech­no­logy blinded me.

Speaking of tech­no­logy, I some­times use an elec­tric bike to get around. It allows me to cov­er more loc­a­tions in one out­ing. Maybe this is counter-pro­duct­ive, I don’t know. Perhaps?

A good friend of mine recently told me that he appre­ci­ates my pho­to­graphy. He also added that my pho­tos reminded him about the slow death before winter. 

Maybe there’s some­thing grim about my photography.

I might be nurs­ing a deep psy­cho­lo­gic­al desire to be allowed peace of mind and time for intro­spec­tion right before the end of a life lived well?

I’m prob­ably over-ana­lys­ing the psy­cho­lo­gic­al aspect (I tend to do that) of spend­ing time in the forest. If it works, it works. Simple as that, right?