“Needless to say, quitting my jobs and putting myself back in school was quite stressful. To cope with the stress I would walk around Manhattan.
At some point, I wanted a way to capture the New York City I was falling in love with during my walks. Still too broke to even afford a smartphone, I bought a $79 point and shoot off of Amazon (which arrived partially broken!) and started to take photos with it on every walk.”
These are the words of photographer Vivienne Gucwa in an interview we did with her, and they’ve absolutely never been more true for so many photographers who become very stressed out by life. For many, photography is an escape–it’s a place where they can create a world of their own, capture things in a different way, and most of all focus on something else completely different from the world around them.
Photographers of all types should go on photowalks–and this ties into something even larger. When someone is filled with lots of negative energies, channeling them into something positive can always help, and in this case, channeling those energies into something that help the person become more creative and results in a positive outcome for the photographer no matter how small it is.
Beyond this, it’s been proven that walking promotes creativity. You’ll get more ideas, you’ll have new interactions, and you’ll even encounter and learn totally new things. If you’re a photographer, this is invaluable. Photowalking with a friend gives you even more value. Photographers can feed off of each other’s energies, work together, and find new and interesting perspectives.
If you’re the type that needs to face down the stress (and there are loads of you), then do it. But the lingering effects can be turned into positive creative energy just by taking a photowalk.