Photography, Health, and Your Life

As you know if you've been following me here, my two main interests are photography and improving health or maintaining good health (through diet, exercise, and supplements - not to mention proper sleep, minimizing stress, etc.).  Some may wonder why I talk about health on a photography blog.  Well, it is my belief that if your health is suffering, and you have a photo session, your images will suffer, too.

Why did I go to health?  When I was in my teens and early twenties, I used to think that what I ate might take a couple of years off the end of my life - you know, live happy until I'm 78 instead of an unhappy diet and make it to 80, or whatever age it might be.  What I didn't think about was that a poor diet would lead to poor health, resulting in unhappiness and a shorter life, too.  My first wake-up call came at 24 when I had constant stomach aches and found out I had an ulcer.  Had to quit soft drinks, bacon and greasy foods, and take Mylanta every day.  And the ulcer went away.  Then at 30, I started having stomach problems again (frequent nausea, cramps, etc.).  No ulcer, but diagnosed with nervous stomach.  After some research (the doctors didn't have an answer for it), I cut out all sugar, artificial ingredients, etc.  Over a period of about 6 months, the nervous stomach went away, for good.  But that's not all - my frequent colds got less severe, and other problems also started disappearing.  My next step was to add supplements, and now I seldom get sick, almost never get headaches, and many other problems went away.  The only time I see a doctor (for the past 25 years or so) is for a sports injury.

I see many photographers posting on FB on photographers I follow, and have seen some photos of themselves.  And when the mention of favorite food or snacks is mentioned, many of them have really terrible diet choices.  If that is you, and you want to enjoy a healthy life, it is my hope that you will make the appropriate changes.  I can't guarantee you'll have perfect health, but I think I can guarantee it will be better than it would have been had you not made those changes.  And I can also pretty much guarantee that as a result, your photography will also be better.

Think about it - if you're shooting a wedding, and you have a headache, nausea, cramps, etc., how are you going to give your best?  But more than that, it's your life and you want to enjoy every minute of it, don't you?

One of the best sites I've found, which explains why and how diet works, is http://www.mercola.com/.  You can sign up and get his daily newsletter, which shares a lot of excellent information.  He sells products, but there is no obligation to buy them.  Another excellent site is "Orthomolecular Medicine News Service," and you can sign up for free here:  http://www.orthomolecular.org/forms/omns_subscribe.shtml  I get a newsletter from them about once a month or less, but they are good.

I hope everyone has a safe, happy, and healthy holiday season.  And I hope, too, for your New Years resolution, you decide to go to health and improve your diet.

Oops - I guess I better add a few photos as this is a photo blog, LOL.  The following photos were taken last night on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica, CA.  With my new camera, as a test.  All were shot at ISO 1600.

The bottom photo was taken without flash, hand held.  Unfortunately, because it was dark out, I did not see the figure running across the frame until I got home.