A Journey of Healing

One Photograph, One Workshop, One Day at a Time

In February of this year (2010) we teamed up with Charles Needle and produced a workshop ‘Creative Macro Photography’. Attending this workshop was this extraordinary person who recently lost her husband. She was taking up photography to help her through her grief. This was her first workshop and the beginning of her journey to heal.

Since this workshop her journey into photography has taken her to different parts of the country, she has been exposed to a variety of instructors and has met some wonderful people. She has found some comfort during this time, but it was her photography that helped her the most while on this journey, it has given her a reason to live and carry on.

In September we did a workshop on ‘Creating a Photo Book’ using Blurb and other programs. Sally, again attended one of our workshops. With her, she brought some of the stunning photographs she had been taking during this journey. It was fun and exciting to she her growth as a photographer and to see happiness in her experience.

Her new book is an accumulation of her photographs - and maybe a touch of a memoir to her healing process and her husband. http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1618332

Thank you Sally, for sharing this journey with us. You are a beautiful person and a wonderful photographer. We wish you all the best as you continue your photography and your life.

It is because of people, and photographers, like you that we enjoy having these workshops. We get a chance to live vicariously through your lens, and then watch you grow as a photographer.

From Sally:

I was with my husband for 18 years. He was my best friend, my husband, my cheerleader and my backbone. He was my rock and my sunshine. He was diagnosed with Cancer that had spread to his spine and after a yearlong battle with extreme pain and unimaginable hurdles he passed away.

When I say he was my sunshine, he was. He smiled everyday that he was here. It did not matter how much pain he was in - he smiled.

I loved him so much and miss him terribly, but I know that we must go on. It would have been so easy to just curl up in a ball and just let it all go. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I still had a desire, a desire to live, as hard as it was and at times it still is I really did want to live.

I joined photography groups; they got me out of the house and kept me out of the malls. I needed to be around people that had my passion for photography. I needed to get out and make some friends, and I did. I can’t express enough how much this helped me. I can only tell you that through my photography I met some fantastic people, I reconnected with others and I’m living.

My first workshop was with “That Photo Shoppe” doing Macro Photography. I did another workshop with them that dealt with building books, books like this one. This book is a result of all the workshops I did, it was a way for me to get back to living again and to make something beautiful out of all the pain.

The journey of healing will never end, but I’m doing it the only way I know, “Through the lens”.

Thanks for being part of my journey...Hope this is not too long :)