Why I Became a Creative Mentor for Landscape & Nature Photographers
I still remember the sight of her hand trembling during the photography workshop after I had challenged her to take a photograph. She had never worked with a camera before, but felt the call to create deep inside her bones.
She reached out to me a couple of days after the workshop, telling me about her dream to become a professional photographer, asking me whether I had ever worked with someone on a long-term basis to guide them along a similar path to the one I was walking.
She was the first person who had enquired about my ‘mentoring’ services, although I certainly wasn’t ready to call it that just yet. I had already had a vision of launching myself in this field in the future and had even begun to jot some notes down on paper, but it felt like my vision was a good few years away yet. I had only recently begun to offer one-day workshops with groups and individuals. I didn’t feel ready to work with someone on a long-term basis, or so I thought.
It turns out that my hand had been forced by my encounter with this lady in a bookshop on a Saturday evening in Aberystwyth. Mentoring always seemed a natural next step for me, given my love of photography, personal development, and working with people on a one-to-one basis. We ended up meeting in a coffee shop a week later, and we agreed upon a deal to work together for the next six months.
One of my first tasks as her newly appointed mentor was to contain her enthusiasm to ‘turn pro’, given she had no idea how to work a camera, never mind create sellable photographs. Although I was earning money from photography after just a few years of taking pictures, I was hardly living the glamorous lifestyle that she was probably spending her days dreaming about. I had to teach her to walk before she could run.
Over the next six months, I worked closely with her, guiding her through six intensive one-to-one tuition days, teaching her the fundamentals of photography, and she began to develop her own photographic style during our time together. We met up for micro photography walks, and I set challenges for her to fulfill during our time apart. Her enthusiasm for the art of photography grew rapidly, despite her experiencing some expected shaky moments throughout the course of the program. It was during these moments that I came alive. I loved being able to offer insights from my own creative journey to put her anxious mind at rest. It felt incredibly fulfilling for me to watch as she grew beyond the challenges she was facing into a new, more confident and creative version of herself following a couple of decades working in healthcare.
My History of Coaching & Mentoring
I come to the world of photography with a history of coaching. I began my work developing people almost twenty years ago — back in sixth form when I enrolled in the Sports Leadership Award and ventured into a local primary school to deliver weekly practical sports sessions. I absolutely loved it. Even at such a young age, I enjoyed giving back and passing on the skills that I had accrued through my own lived experiences.
In my mid-twenties, I became a football coach for an academy in Wales, working with a team of Under-16s. Following that, I became a personal trainer and worked with numerous clients on a one-to-one basis, helping them achieve their fitness goals and build confidence in their bodies. I have carried many of these skills into my career as a photography tutor, and I have so far gained some truly wonderful and heartwarming reviews from the people that I have worked with over the past few years.
I have a genuine passion for seeing people grow in confidence and ability, and watching as they overcome challenges to become the best versions of themselves. My partner regularly tells me that I am a ‘sower’ because I am constantly planting seeds in people with the words I speak. She has also undergone her own counselling training over the past couple of years, and she tells me that I naturally tick all of the boxes, possessing many of the traits a counsellor should have.
I have had a keen interest in psychology since I embarked on my own bodybuilding journey in 2017, which, interestingly, was how my photography journey started. I took photographs and made videos of myself ‘pumping iron’ to tell a story of transformation and personal growth. This is where my love of ‘planting seeds’ began as I took to writing in my journal to plant them in myself.
Over the past eight years, I have observed, as objectively as possible, my own personal growth in my photographs, and through the work I have been doing in the pages of my journal, beneath the bars at the gym, and in the recesses of my own mind. I now use what I have learnt to aid others on their own growth journey. The camera, I have found, is an excellent tool to achieve personal and spiritual growth, and I have developed a philosophy of my own around my creative practice. I wrote passionately about this in my creative essay, A Dance Between Thought & Being, which was originally published in Nature Vision Magazine in 2024.
Resistance to the Call
It has now been over two years since I turned around and offered my hand to mentor one aspiring photographer following the creative photography workshop I delivered in Aberystwyth, Mid Wales. I suppose in some way, I have held onto some resistance to making the transition to offer my mentoring services to other photographers, wanting to wait until the next big achievement for the validation that I was ready to do so.
This validation came in a tidal wave recently, following my highly successful solo exhibition, Finding Light, at Plas Glyn y Weddw. The seven-week showcasing of my work in the beautiful gallery is estimated to have exposed my work and personal story to around 20,000 people — enough to fill a decent-sized football stadium. ‘What more confirmation do I need that I am ready to help others along this long and dark creative path?’ I thought to myself in the weeks following the exhibition.
Just a few short weeks after completely overhauling my website and online presence to reflect my ambition to serve other photographers as a mentor, I was approached by an aspiring landscape photographer to deliver two days of practical tuition in Eryri (Snowdonia). Having struck a deep resonance with him during our call, intuitively sensing there could be a greater purpose behind our encounter, I felt drawn to reach out and pitch the idea of a long-term mentoring program to him. The proposed program would focus primarily on developing his practical photography skills through practical workshops, while simultaneously helping him refine his own creative purpose through monthly calls and ongoing messaging communication. The proposal was accepted via email yesterday. I was filled with excitement at the thought of what we might be able to achieve together in twelve months!
Recognising a Need in Landscape Photography
One of my biggest frustrations over the years I have practiced landscape photography is the sheer obsession in the industry with the technical side of the craft: ISO, f-numbers, apertures, hyperfocal distance, which lenses to use, masks to apply when editing, and ‘rules’ to abide by… The list goes on and on. The art has been lost to the soul-sucking science and logic.
Upon starting photography in 2018, I found myself naturally gravitating to the deeper and more philosophical side of the art. The camera quickly became a tool for me to understand myself, express my emotions, and connect with the spirit of Nature. As mentioned earlier, embarking on my own creative practice resulted in the writing of the essay A Dance Between Thought & Being, as well as other important and foundational pieces of writing, such as Learning to See Again. I have learnt for myself how fundamentally life-changing the pursuit of this creative practice can be when we open ourselves up and allow for intuition to lead us. These two essays articulate the depths of my creative philosophies and my personal ‘why’.
By uncovering this deep sense of purpose within my own life, I am left wondering how many other people might benefit from applying more philosophical thought to their own creative practices, and what impact a collective shift would have on the art of landscape photography as a whole. Rather than fixating on the technical facets of the camera and the 'rules' of composition that can inhibit creative expression, how many lives might be enriched when educated about the benefits of creative practice on an emotional, psychological, and spiritual level?
Making Meaning from Adversity and Using Creativity as Inner Alchemy
Growing up in the way I did, around episodes of emotional and physical violence in my home, I have been instilled with great empathy and compassion towards the human condition. I understand at a deep level many of the struggles and challenges a person can face on their journey to find a place of belonging and reach a point of self-acceptance. It feels as though I was born to be here, doing this; offering my services as a mentor to others who wish to pursue a life of deeper meaning by utilising the powers of creative expression.
Creativity, I believe, is the most powerful instrument for healing we have in our inventory. By creating something beautiful from the place of our deepest struggles, we disarm our most frightening demons. By walking fearlessly into our darkest caves and shining our light from within, we can face these ugly forces head-on and learn how to tame them. When we harness the power of our creativity and create from a place of personal truth, we become alchemists of the modern world, transmuting our emotional pain and suffering into beauty.
The ability to perform such inner magic brings the ultimate sense of freedom and the very healing that we need to exist fully as our soulful selves here on earth. It gives us the ability to create light from our darkness and pure beauty from the ugliness that we all have within ourselves.
Nothing has been more cathartic to me than finding my own method of expressing my emotions through creativity. Through the creative process, I unearthed a purer, more whole, integrated, and authentic version of myself. I have found a light within my own darkness, attributing meaning and purpose to my most painful experiences and memories. I have, therefore, made peace with my demons and found acceptance in myself. By accessing my own wellspring of creativity, my pain has become my power.
I feel very strongly that everyone could benefit from finding a method to release their emotional baggage, particularly the darker emotions that are so often buried down in the unconscious depths of our psyche. For me, there is no better way to do so than by transmuting them into something beautiful that adds value to the world: a photograph, an essay, a book, a video, a poem, a dance, a song, or anything else ‘creative’ that you care to imagine.
When we increase our awareness of our abilities to imagine and to create, we break down psychological barriers and move beyond the limiting beliefs that we have chosen to adopt throughout our lives so far. By doing so, we regain control of our own destiny, take back the helm, and decide which port our ship is sailing towards.
Not only do we create the work itself, but we, in turn, become the creators of the versions of ourselves that will walk the earth tomorrow. We get to shape our own individual futures, as well as the future of our collective species. That future is, no doubt, a brighter one, should we all learn how to better navigate our complex emotional landscapes by further understanding and utilising the power of creativity to dance with our demons beneath the moonlight and tame our own darkness with light.
Forming Lasting Connections and Sharing Moments with Others
Some of the best days I have had throughout the course of my short career so far have been those spent with other photographers around the beautiful landscape of Eryri (Snowdonia), introducing them to the places I love so dearly, and helping them develop and refine their own creative vision. One of the biggest blessings of working with people in this way is that they allow me into their worlds for a while. This is the most beautiful thing about the journey I have been on myself, and the real reward for having shared so much of that journey in the various digital spaces I have utilised throughout.
My life has been enriched immeasurably over the past seven years for having practiced the art of photography and engaged with Nature in such an intentional manner. I long for nothing more in this life than to share these beautiful experiences along my journey, and to connect with others at the deepest level, guiding them to some of the same places I have visited, both outside in the landscape and within the walls of my own inner garden, so they can experience for themselves some of the profound moments of beauty, belonging, and presence that I have whilst immersed in the natural world and engaged in the ‘now’ in a state of creative bliss.
To quote from my aforementioned essay, Learning to See Again:
‘‘A journey into the natural world offers great sanctuary and refuge, a place for stillness and deep reflection. When a man finds himself wandering alone on the clifftops that have been delicately shaped over millennia by the seas’ persistent chisel, what else has he to do but look back upon his own life to understand and make peace with the raging tides that carved the caves and crevasses within his own internal landscape?
Such a process of introspection can lead to immeasurable inner transformation. In my own case, the camera has been a tool for self-study, and I have been unable to avoid noticing the significant increase in awareness and presence within my own being since I began this practice; something that has greatly benefitted the relationships that I nurture with people around me. I move much more slowly and intently through life now, having ventured outdoors in search of the soul of Nature, and I am able to perceive much more within my own surroundings daily.
Conversations with other people seem to be much deeper, and I am comfortable in allowing more space than my once more anxious self might have. This patience allows people the space that is required to open to the light and reveal who they are beyond the common mask that we all choose to wear at various points throughout our lives.’’
At the deepest level, I chose to walk the path of a mentor because of my desire to share the gift of ‘seeing’ — the landscape, myself, and others — that I have been gratefully granted. One of my philosophies is that there is a genius residing in everyone, and the term ‘genius’ should not be reserved only for the Einstein’s and Tesla’s of this world. Over the past few years, I have been stripping myself of the layers of conditioning and beliefs that prevented me from seeing my own genius. I know who I am now, and I know what gifts I bring to the world. The next stage of my journey is about helping others see themselves clearly in the light, so their own gifts are revealed and they can unearth their own genius that resides within.