Photography Therapy - Autumn 2022

 It's been 6 months since I said my final farewell to my Dad and I have recently developed 2 rolls of Kodak ColorPlus I shot between my Dad's death and his funeral in late 2022. I have often spoken of using my photography to help me heal from a stoke and other physical ills over the last few years, but it turns out it helps with grief too.

On the day I shot these photographs I was in a daze emotionally, but a sunny afternoon presented itself and I loaded a roll of ColorPlus into my Nikon F801s, put another in my camera bag and headed into town. I had no particular plan, just a need to be outside with my camera and my thoughts.

I needed a walk to think about anything but my role in my Dad's funeral as it had made my mind a muddled mess and I didn't want to do a half arsed job of his Eulogy. I was visiting familiar locations around town, just happy to be taking photos with no real direction in mind for what I wanted from the day. I was about half way through my first roll when I realised I had been taking a lot of photos in portrait orientation rather than landscape, so I figured I would carry on and see what happened.

Shooting in portrait orientation is hard for me, my back injury restricts the range of movement I have in my arms and my stroke robbed me of my balance which is why I use a walking stick. I have learned to rotate my camera to the right rather than the usual left when switching to portrait. This means I have my shutter at the bottom which is much more comfortable for me. Rotating to the left with my shutter at the top puts my weight on my weakest side and I have taken a tumble or two over the years, so I switched my technique.

Portrait mode meant I had to look for different compositions, to change how I looked at the town centre, I could single out individual buildings or get the whole Cenotaph in frame with the Parish Church. I could get closer to those buildings too rather than having to move way back and still miss the roof out. 

I was at Wigan Parish Church when I had to load a fresh film and I was beginning to enjoy myself. I explored the Arch and managed to get my self down near the floor without falling over to photograph The Old Courts using the arch as a frame. I also explored familiar compositions of the Church Tower before finishing my film and heading off home for my tea.

I put my film in the fridge when i got home and had planned on developing it, but that got delayed until March 2023 when I finally got around to developing it. Leaving it so long brought back memories of the day and it was a happy day to be honest. I didn't realise it at the time, but I was at peace that day. I knew everything was going to be ok.

I developed my Kodak ColorPlus with a Cinestill Cs41 kit, I scanned them with my Ion Slides2PC 35mm scanner and processed the photos with Affinity Photo 2. Here's a few of my favourites from my 2 rolls of Kodak ColorPlus 200. You will have seen a few of these compositions in B&W recently, but this was the day I began to explore those compositions so you're seeing the start of that process last rather than first. I have placed them and more from both rolls in albums on Flickr you can visit using the links below. I hope you enjoy them.

Nikon F801s - ColorPlus pt 1
Nikon F801s - ColorPlus pt 2