“Photography for Healing”
John Diamond, M.D.
Extract from the book
Beyond the Obvious: Photography for Healing
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There are so many uses of photography, but the one that matters most to me is for it to be therapeutic, for I am a therapist, a healer, and I use photography as an essential component of my healing—of self and other sufferers. By therapeutic I mean not dealing just with dis-ease, but going deeper, much deeper to the underlying anguish which afflicts us all throughout our lives—not feeling truly loved.
Over many years now I’ve taken at least a million photographs and taught photography to my students with virtually always this approach as my underlying purpose. I am not concerned with technique—although over time I have acquired some—nor with the subject matter, the apparent message. I am only ever concerned with the photograph having high Life Energy and thus conveying the deep message of peace, of feeling loved which I call Belovedness.
For years I have used many forms of the Creative Arts to help identify each person’s individual and highly personal harmony. Each person has a special gift or talent—his individual song of the soul—that is unique to him or her alone, which, when engaged in, gives a special and absorbing joy and raises their Life Energy to the highest. Photography has this ability when approached correctly, opening the door to a very special sense of peace and well-being that few other activities can provide.
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Every person, every thing, has a unique auric field, for each has an inner Essence. I love to photograph people, linking with them, their auric field, through the lens. And the same with rocks, and trees and water. All have auric fields linked with mine through the lens. Love, it is said, is when two or more auric fields merge into One. When I photograph, I am Aware of my auric field and the camera’s as one, and then ours as one with the subject. I travel through the lens to enter into the subject, to become One. And, of course, it must be so when healing.
