Photography crept up on me quietly. It did not arrive with a grand announcement or a shiny new identity. It just slipped into my life and started rearranging the furniture. Not the physical stuff, but the way I move through the world, the way I notice things, the way I feel about being here at all.
Before photography, days were often something to get through. Lists, obligations, noise. I moved fast, eyes forward, thinking about the next thing rather than the thing right in front of me. Now the world asks me to slow down. Or rather, photography asks me to. It nudges my chin up. It says, look at that light. Look at the way the pavement is wet but only in patches. Look at how that building has been standing there patiently while everyone rushes past it.
It has changed how I feel about the world because it has changed how I see it. The ordinary has become layered. A bus stop is not just a bus stop. It is a geometry problem. It is colour or the absence of it. It is a person waiting, shoulders slumped, lost in thought. Photography has made the world feel less flat and more generous. There is always something offering itself if I am paying attention.
It has also shaped what I want to do with my time. I am less interested in ticking boxes and more interested in wandering. Less drawn to loud places that demand performance and more to quiet corners where things are allowed to just be. I plan days around light now. I notice weather in a way I never did before. A forecast is no longer a mild curiosity. It is a mood board.
Mental health sits underneath all of this. Photography has become a way of regulating myself without forcing myself. When my head is noisy, the camera gives it a job. It asks me to concentrate, but gently. It anchors me in my body. Feet on the ground. Eye to the viewfinder. Breath slowing as I wait for the moment that feels right. It is mindfulness without the pressure to be calm or fixed or better.
There are days when words feel heavy and thinking feels sticky. On those days, images do the work for me. I do not have to explain myself to anyone. I can just notice. I can just collect. The act of seeing becomes enough. That matters more than I can properly articulate.
Foggy days are the clearest example of this. A foggy day makes me feel almost electric. It is like the world has turned the volume down and stripped itself back to essentials. Shapes. Contrast. Silence. Fog does not ask for colour. It demands black and white. It makes me want to scream it, grab my camera, load the film, and get out the door before the mood lifts. There is urgency there, but a quiet one. A sense that this version of the world is temporary and I want to meet it properly while it is here.
Film, especially black and white, has deepened this relationship. It slows me even more. It asks me to trust myself. There is no instant feedback, no scrolling, no fixing. Just choice and consequence. That feels oddly grounding in a world obsessed with optimisation. Film lets me be imperfect on purpose. It reminds me that not everything needs to be shared to be valid.
As I look towards 2026, I feel a pull. Not a resolution, because I am tired of those. More like an intention that feels kind rather than demanding. I want to get out every day and take more photos. Some days that might mean a proper walk with a clear idea in mind. Other days it might be one frame taken badly on the way to buy milk. Both count.
This is not about clout or numbers or proving anything. It is not about likes or growth or turning a quiet love into a performance. It is about me staying connected to the world and to myself. About giving my days a small thread of curiosity to follow. About having something that asks me to look outward when my instinct is to fold in on myself.
Photography has not fixed me. That is not its job. But it has softened the edges. It has given me permission to be present without needing a reason. It has taught me that attention is a form of care. For places. For moments. For myself.
If 2026 becomes a year of walking, noticing, and quietly making pictures that nobody else ever needs to see, I think that would be enough.