I have a new brain-calming potion. I call it accidental blue sky therapy. I discovered it on an afternoon walk, when the sky was bright, cobalt blue.
Blue skies have become commonplace this year. We’ve had weeks of heatwaves and sand-coloured grass. But it still feels alien to any Brit born before 2021. Our summers were always very straightforwardly disappointing. We had three sunny days, followed by a billion days of cloud, rain and hangovers.
This blue, this outrageous blue, was so blue I got my camera out and started photographing it, lest it evaporate.
While I was in this blue fugue state I started using the sky as a backdrop for anything I could see nearby. Bits of flowers, feathers, my sanity.
I did this without thinking and it added an enormous wave of giddy happiness to the mix, for reasons I’ll try to explain in a moment.
If you want to follow along you will need:
Blue sky.
Grasses, leaves or wildflowers (from a park, forest or garden).
Your camera or phone.
Space to frolic and wave things about in the air without fear of being sectioned.
This tiny, white feather was the first thing I shot. I saw it on the grass, picked it up, dropped it, chased it on a gust of wind, caught it again, then jubilantly held it up to the sky with my left hand while shooting it with the camera in my right hand.
I quickly discovered that these shots required a sort of pincer movement with thumb and forefinger because most of the subjects were tiny and prone to fly away.
Here’s a behind-the-scenes shot of my next one complete with my overexposed thumb in the frame.
The verge I was stood on was carpeted in golden grasses and colourful wildflowers, bursting with life. It was almost too much, like a kitsch postcard.
I found this snapped, trodden on kernel of something for my next subject.
At this stage I was really into it. I’d been worrying about something earlier but by now I’d completely forgotten it.
When we’re stressed we spend a lot of time looking down. Our worlds become smaller, more enclosed and more ruminatory. Sometimes the tetris blocks of modern life obscure the view.
When we look up there is perspective, expanse and possibility. You get a ‘cut the bullshit’ mind cull that draws focus to what really matters.
Think of the feeling you get when you’re up in a plane or at the top of a skyscraper. Now look down. You see the tiny cars and the tiny people slowly going about their business. Zig-zagging, in unison, like ants. It’s a genuinely moving experience. We are beautiful, wobbling dust particles.
Nature, perspective and that big bright gulp of infinite blue sky stops us feeling so central to everything. It’s enormously freeing to have your ego dissolve in a cleansing tide of smallness.
There’s some interesting science to back up the importance of looking up at the sky.
A 2023 study, succinctly titled: ‘Cloudy or sunny? Effects of different environmental types of urban green spaces on public physiological and psychological health under two weather conditions’ found that…
“[P]eople’s preference for blue sky on sunny days mediates the recovery benefits of this environment type.”
So specifically being able to see more of the sky seemed to matter.
More sky exposure, less physiological stress.
So when we look out of the window and see beautiful blue skies it’s good to try, in whatever small way we can, to lug our bodies outside and charge our wellbeing battery packs.
Photography gives us a reason to get out there. It makes us look and focus and pay attention.
I probably happily lost at least half an hour gazing up just taking these shots.
And then there’s the discovery element.
We are foragers. There’s something enormously rewarding about looking, noticing and finding things in our environment.
Two hundred years of industrialisation hasn’t prepared us for life indoors, blinking beneath artificial light.
The antidote, at least temporarily, is ridiculously simple: look up. Look around.
Most of what I picked up would probably be classified as weeds. They looked like beautiful aliens against the impossibly blue sky.
You also get to look back at the images whenever you want.
Maybe on a winter’s day when your socks are wet and your nose won’t stop running. The spooky magic of photography grants a single moment with eternal youth.
You might not feel the sun on your skin or the nettles stinging your shins, but there is a very happy echo.
A memory of being there and of seeing what you saw and fell in love with all over again. This time without fiddling with lenses, chasing lost feathers or worrying about getting back to work.
So if you see a blue sky through the window, go outside and bathe in it.
Take a camera and frolic in the grass. Pick up a pretty weed and wave it wildly above your head.
And take photos, lots of photos.