"I am Daniel and being a contributor helps me with my mental health challenges"
"To say I have had mental health challenges throughout my life is to say I am Human. As an autistic I have had challenges in certain areas of existence that would be considered as amplified when compared to most others. From mid-2013 and for 18 months I was ill with clinical depression and anxiety disorder.
Here's my story!"
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"To say I have had mental health challenges throughout my life is to say I am Human.
As an autistic I have had challenges in certain areas of existence that would be considered as amplified when compared to most others.
The same is true of my talents.
I have had to deal with the challenges. I have been able to express my talents.
The start of my photography journey, in terms of it having a positive effect on my mental health was when I returned from a trip with my father to Chicago, USA in February 1997.
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I had taken a small compact film camera and wanted to capture some of the scenes from the trip, largely as a memory reference point, but also to show others.
With such an inspiring ‘canvas’ to work with I quickly started to use up film stock.
I also found during the trip that I wanted to capture images that were not just documentary, but that had an inherent aesthetic, and to extenuate and draw attention to the aspects unique to the place and my experience of it.
‘Skyscrapers’!
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Wow, I was awestruck, the sheer scale overwhelmed me, and I became desperate to somehow capture the feeling with photographs.
I was pleased with the process and the results, and when returning to my new adopted city of Birmingham, I sought to find similar feelings and capture the associated photographs.
Birmingham is not Chicago, but it became, for me, something else.
The city is not full of incredible skyscrapers, but it is full of so much more!
People have hobbies, special interests, mine became urbanscape photography.
I began to discover the city of Birmingham and found that I developed a positive perception of the place and its massive diversity on so many levels. I grew up in London and the south-east and had a typical view of cities ‘up-north’ but not having actually experienced any properly.
I knew people had a dim view of Birmingham on a national level, and having started to live there I developed a feeling of indignation, the city had a bad reputation, but that this was largely unjustified.
I enjoyed capturing photos of the city but developed a motivation to use them as a way of dispelling the negative myths about it.
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In 2010, having had very positive feedback from friends and family for my burgeoning collection of positive images of the city, and comments made like, “I’ve never seen Birmingham looking like that!”, I decided to create a set of ten actual postcards. I had 200 of each printed and managed to get some local city centre outlets to sell them. In the digital age this proved to be a very limited success but I was encouraged in principle.
From mid-2013 and for 18 months, I was ill with clinical depression and anxiety disorder.
In April 2014, as part of my eventual recovery I tried to get out into the city and take further photographs, as something to do, as a ‘what the hell, I’ve nothing better to do with my time’, the summer was approaching and there was a lot of transformation going on in the city centre.
I decided to start publishing my photography regularly on Twitter and slipped into a process of almost daily acquiring and posting photos of the city centre and surrounding areas.
I have since continued this with a small gap in 2023 due to similar illness. My Twitter account now shows over 12 thousand posts to date.
In 2015 I met Jonathan who had seen and recognised my photography as an expression of my passion and pride in my adopted city.
Having met we soon realised that there was also the large element of a positive benefit to my mental health, from the process and the recognition received through social media for my efforts.
Jonathan was in the early stages of developing a unique digital people engagement tool, the purpose of it’s functionality being to enhance social engagement, community cohesion and producing social values with economic growth.
The platform being developed had a public facing output channel that could host and present my photography (and other community contributors of digital content). This would be adding to a large searchable library of content generated by people passionate about their community, place and their particular interests.
I joined Jonathan and his team as a development partner on a voluntary basis and have continued since.
The involvement in the development of the digital platform, in addition to the onward contribution of digital content, gave me an enormous boost in terms of confidence, self-esteem and general mental health wellbeing.
A mapping project of Birmingham and the wider West Midlands I have been involved in has now attracted well over 2 million views.
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As a result of being involved with this project, and my continuing publishing my city photography, further opportunities for me became available.
In 2016 I was contacted by the Chair of PWC Birmingham. Matthew was impressed by my photography, why I was doing it, and had a proposal for me.
I had started to capture and publish regular photos of the demolition of the Central Library, Matthew asked if I would like to continue a photo journal to include the construction of their new headquarters, One Chamberlain Square, on the new ‘Paradise Birmingham’ redevelopment site. This was with view to creating a coffee table book for the eventual launch and opening of the building.
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I agreed a small fee and supplied regular photography up to the completion of the building, the book was produced and handed out at the launch event in December 2019.
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During this process I decided that I would start to document, in my own photographic style, the construction of several other building in the city, together with a focus on the Paradise Development and have continued since, creating several full construction photo journals for many buildings.
I am now a major contributor of content to many platforms and I have helped with the launch of Centres for Pride of Place. The benefit for myself over the years to my general mental health has been considerable, being busy is always better for me, and being able to indulge in my passion for photography, having an outlet for this, the recognition for my efforts, and the contribution to some social positivity has been significant.
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HERE is a link to the video I have helped create.
As part of my extra-curricular work, I have also produced seven 'Birmingham Gems' charity calendars, 2017 to 2023.
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Getting out and taking photos is only the start of a process I go through as part of keeping me occupied. Because of the outlet I have through my Twitter account and the contributing to the Community Passport, and wanting to produce images that are the best I can, I go through a process of using software to enhance the images from their original camera acquired versions.
I generally take more photos than I eventually publish, I like to spend time with my laptop looking through what I may have collected and picking the ones that stand out for me in some way and become worth processing and then publishing. I can be quite harsh with myself and only publish the best images.
The evaluation and post-processing of my photography gives me an outlet for my creativity, generally I get very positive feedback and this really helps my confidence and self esteem.
I hope you have enjoyed reading my story".