Dementia and photography

 I one main hobby which I really enjoy these days, and that is photography something which gives me a lot of satisfaction, on good and bad days as it is so relaxing, to look at without doing much.

The second is photography, a hobby that I always enjoyed, even before the diagnosis, but now there are problems remembering the settings, etc.

The pleasure I get from this hobby is quite something, and yes things can and will go wrong but with digital photography, life is sometimes that bit easier, as the bad pictures can be removed rather than expensive processing only to find the photographs failed to come out or are blurred.

I have tried a few things to try to remember the settings, but I always get somewhere and either can not remember them or can not find the paper with them on. This gets distressing, but I have to fight this as I get so much out of the hobby that I can not give up,

I have a few friends who also have dementia, who are very keen photographers and they seem to have similar problems, so I am not alone.

I love taking pictures of wildlife, but as will all small things whether it is wildlife or children they never stay in the same place for very long, so patience has to be used, or you need somewhere comfortable to sit.

These days with the help of assistive technology things are slightly easier, because once I have got myself set up with the camera tripod and my remote camera switch, I can sit back and wait.

This photograph was taken early in the morning down at our local park, and it was a great thrill getting close to this bird which is normally shy, but there was no one else around at the time.

Being able to catch this otter was a wonderful experience to me as it was a very cold and damp day out in a boat, but it worked and is my pride and joy. I took this when we were on holiday in Scotland

Wildlife photography is very relaxing because it means that you have to sit still and be patient, and it can very thrilling when the shot comes outright.

I could not get very close with the shots above so I had to use a cheap zoom lens, but I did enjoy the pictures when I loaded them onto my computer.

There are many photography books, but none for those with this illness, so it's a case of trial and error, and I guess that many professionals don't think that people like me are worth helping. It's up to us to change that and prove them wrong because we are still active even though our memories and brains are doing their own thing

Of cause, we must always remember, that any pictures of people taken can never be shown on the Internet without permission, otherwise we can risk prosecution, whether we have this illness or not.

Recently I found that I had lost a lot of control when trying to use manual settings, and although that is upsetting, I can still use the automatic settings.