The healing process
Therapist and body positivity photographer Darshan Stevens opens up about her own journey.
Canadian photographer Darshan Stevens already has one successful career behind her. She’s now forging ahead with another: as a therapist.
“Before I started my private practice as a counsellor,” she explains, “I worked full-time as a professional photographer. Now I primarily work as a therapist with a little photography on the side. But I strongly believe the two go hand-in-hand.”
After attending photography school to study photojournalism, Darshan worked for ten years shooting mainly weddings and portraits. “Getting a little bored, I decided to start a project in the sphere of body positivity, and thus the Bed Sessions were born: nude photos of couples, families or individuals in a style that I think is more akin to naturism than it is to erotic nude photography. In other words, it's people just hanging out naked, or partially naked, or with some of the subjects naked and others not.”
Leap
It wasn’t a huge leap for Darshan, who describes herself as “a sex-positive person,” and for whom naturism is second nature.
“I think erotic nudes are wonderful, but in this series, I am showing that nudity doesn't always have to equate to sex. It is the casual treatment of nudity that, even if I say so myself, makes them work. I want us to reclaim our naked bodies, and to no longer have nakedness used as a vehicle of oppression via religion, advertising and patriarchy. When we are programmed to believe that nakedness is shocking, shameful, sinful or titillating, the people or institutions that teach us this are able to exert power and control over us. If we have the ability, privilege, and interest to say no, you can't use my nudity against me, it’s a powerful message.”
It helps of course that Darshan is a naturist herself.
“I'm a member at my local club in British Columbia, called Sol Sante. It's a wonderful place with a thriving, albeit small, population of fun-loving folks. My husband Alex and I have also travelled a few times to Zipolite in Mexico: we were there for a couple of the early gatherings of the Festival Nudista. But mostly we’re naked closer to home: Cortes Island, where we live, is a nudist-friendly paradise with gorgeous lakes and beaches. After living on the island for 13 years, and swimming hundreds of times, I can count on one hand the number of occasions we’ve had to wear bathing suits.”
Backdrop
Darshan’s ‘backyard’ offers a perfect backdrop for much of her photography work, and indeed was part of the inspiration behind the Bed Sessions.
“I came up with the name because the early shoots were focused on the dynamics of two people laying around in bed together. But it quickly evolved into indoor/outdoor sessions: the shoots frequently feature my own home, garden and the beach out in front of it, although sometimes I travel to the homes of the people featured in the shoots. Luckily, I haven’t had to do too much in the way of promotion: the subjects usually approached me, having seen other photo series on my website.”
How would she describe her style?
“I love beauty. Not necessarily conventional beauty, more the beauty that is interesting, that makes us think, that makes us reflective, that makes us feel something. So although conceptually I like the philosophy of documentary photography, which is how I was trained, my personal style has evolved into a kind of mixed-media approach, in that I combine organic moments with more orchestrated elements to make the photos representative of my aesthetic.
“I like photography as a medium because I can combine the candidness of moments that happen naturally with my personal touch in the lighting, in the orientation, in props and so on. It’s similar to how I paint, where I choose the colour, the texture and the elements I am going to include. In photography, I am arranging my subjects and environment in a way that is specific. For example, I invite my clients to bring props like books, or instruments, or pieces of clothing, anything that feels like it represents them. And I use filters and cloths and lights in front of my lens for a blurry, soft or partial focus. I use light to obscure some things in the frame while highlighting others. I work my subjects so that their expressions, their poses, their proximity, convey something about the way I see the world, the way I feel myself in the world.”
Approach
Some photographers distance themselves totally from their subjects. Darshan’s approach is the exact opposite.
“It’s probably fair to say that I use my photography, and my art in general, partly as a tool for self-reflection. The photos I love the most, the ones I display, say something about the subject yes, about the connection between the subjects, yes, about nudity and the politics of nudity, yes, but also about myself and about what I consider to be interesting, compelling, beautiful, and essentially what it feels like to be me in the world. This may sound a little selfish, but I think it gets at the heart of what most, if not all, artists are trying to do. Which is to say: use art therapeutically in order to understand their own selves, and to see in their art a deeper understanding of who they are, reflected back to them in a three dimensional, tangible reality.”
As she admits, that might also have had something to do with her switching gears into therapy work.
“I suppose I've become a therapist because I see things so much through a ‘lens,’ in every sense of the word. It’s an opportunity for digging, for being curious about our reactions, our expectations, and what we can learn about ourselves and the world through processes like this. Can we be curious about our reactions? Can we forge a kind of bond through doing this process together? It's like going on a journey together, and encountering things that surprise and inform us along the way. I get that this might sound a bit pretentious! But I do think art, and therapy, are both collaborative processes.”
Move
Making a mid-life career move has therefore been part of Darshan’s own journey.
“When I began as a photographer, I assumed that it would be a dream come true, but I discovered I don't really travel well. I have also suffered at times from depression and anxiety. I'm a fairly introverted person with sensory overwhelm issues, so I get stressed and anxious with a lot of travel. Also, we would have had to move from our home on the island in order to make it easier to continue with the photography full-time. And we weren't willing to upset the work-life balance that we had achieved. I re-trained to become a therapist, and can now do that out of our home, whilst my husband – who is also a photographer – looks after our small child and his elderly mother.”
Not that the photography has been left behind. Darshan goes on to explain that she still uses some expressive arts techniques in her sessions with clients, albeit admitting that the primary area she is now working in is a type of trauma therapy called Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFST).
Her specialisations include younger people struggling with anxiety or depression; problems related to sexual orientation, confusion or curiosity; patients living with chronic pain; those affected by conspiracy theory addiction or engulfment; and survivors of cultic or high-control abuse.
“The latter in particular fascinates me,” she says. “My interest in cults and conspiracy theories was sparked through friends and family members becoming fascinated and subsequently radicalised via online conspiracy theories such as QAnon. Seeing the dramatic shifts in people I care for has made me passionate about increasing access to therapy for those attempting to de-radicalise. I also want to promote cult education so that people are less susceptible to indoctrination from these elements.”
Agenda
Also on the agenda is setting up a series of retreats that incorporate creativity, combining this with IFS therapy. “My belief is that our body carries healing resources and an innate wisdom and inclination to move towards wholeness and well-being.” And it’s in that respect that she believes she can truly combine her two main passions of photography and therapy.
“I look forward to picking up my camera again in earnest with more maturity and life experience under my belt. I hope to approach photography in a way that is more nourishing and less prone to burn-out. I'm a more confident person now, possibly partly because I’m not as dependent financially on photography to survive. When it was the mainstay of our income, the margins were slim-to-none, and we worked all the time. It was a recipe for stress and the sapping of creativity.
“When I start working again as a photography I will have my career as a therapist as my main income source, so I will be able to be more selective about projects I want to work on. I'm also hoping to continue with my nude shoots. I'd like to create more diversity in the portfolio, because right now, if I’m honest, it does trend towards white, cisgender, young, able-bodied and slim.
“As I have found, there’s a much bigger world out there.”
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