Sydney Photographer Creates Visual Gratitude Practice
Sydney Photographer, Kate Branch, has found a wonderful way to travel inwardly as op-posed to travel adventures she’d originally envisaged, by creating a visual compilation of her favourite sunrises and sunsets from around the globe. A photographic gratitude prac-tice.
The gratitude project, entitled 40 Years Around The Sun, features40photos, all taken on her Leica camera,and will be donated to the Wikimedia Commons Projecthttps://common-s.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Kate_Branch_Photography, so that anyone, anywhere in the world, will be able to access and utilise these photos freely. It will be available to download from October 10th 2020.
Although international travel is still largely off the cards for most of us this year, Kate re-alised that she could bring to life her old travel memories by creating, in video form, a se-lection of her best photographic work throughout the years, featuring the burning orb that connects us all; the sun.
Using the medium of photography shown in video format, she realised she could take her friends, family and fans of her work on a virtual tour back through time to enjoy scenic moments from across the Earth.
Kate says of the unique gratitude photography project that she wanted to turn a negative into positive, “I decided to bring this video project to life as a celebration of my own experi-ence of forty years around the sun, especially in lieu of the fact that due to the current pandemic a travel trip or big party was out of the question.
Branch continues on her ‘why’ for creating the project, “When I completed my Masters in Art Therapy at University, I worked with adults with dementia who were often confined to their rooms but what really struck me was that we would spend long periods poring over their life photo albums, which seemed to trigger happy memories. Although I am in very different circumstances, I’ve found a parallel here in the fact that during a tougher year, with lockdown restrictions in play for many of us, I too have found solace in reliving my own photographic memories. My photos have helped me transcend the current situation and take me to another place. This project therefore came about in the hope that perhaps I can also help take others away on a virtual travel journey with me. In fact, the quote that came to mind for me over and again whilst I was working on this project was – “Some-times you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory” – Dr. Seuss.
40 Years Around The Sun, featuring 40sunrises and sunsets captured across the globe over time, by Mosman photographer Kate Branch, will be available to download for free from October 10th 2020 via: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Kate_Branch_Photogra-phy.
About: Kate Branch is a life-long photographer, social media manager and travel lover who cur-rently resides in Sydney, with her husband and two children.
She holds two University degrees, a Bachelor (BFA) of Fine Art, of which she majored in Photography, and a Master (MA) of Art Therapy (Fine Art and Psychodynamics). Alongside her academic background, Kate credits travel for being her ultimate teacher in aiding her appreciation and understanding of art, photography, gratitude and life.
Kate donates her world wide images as a gratitude practice to Wikki Commons. Kate shares her images under the Creative Commons license which allows everyone to use them as they wish. Sign up for Kate Branch’s free framework on how to integrate photog-raphy and gratitude. Find out more at katebranch.com
Photo credit: Sunset – Kate Branch