Photo Stories

This tool was developed as part of Cultural Cwtsh, which was an online creative wellbeing hub for the health and care workforce in Wales, created by the Arts Council of Wales in collaboration with artists across the country.

In partnership with the Arts Council of Wales, we’re excited to share this mental wellbeing tool, alongside with many other creative resources, with everyone in Wales!

“A great way to develop your creative eye.”

My name is Sarah Featherstone and I’m an artist and writer. I trained as a nurse in Cardiff in the nineties, and I worked in Rookwood and the Heath hospital, and later, as a district nurse in Ceredigion. Now, I facilitate creative wellbeing sessions in the community combining printmaking, painting, and creative writing.

I’d like to share with you how to make photo stories, a great way to develop your creative eye and a practice that can easily become part of your daily routine. You’ll quickly build up an interesting series of work that can be shared with friends and family.

Photo stories are ideal for uploading to your Facebook or Instagram account if you have one, or if not, they are wonderful mementos of something that’s inspired you both as an image, and through a deeper consideration of it, to create your poem or prose.

During lockdown, on my daily walks, I began taking lots of photos on my phone of things in my local environment that I hadn’t noticed before. It helped to take my mind off anxious or repetitive thoughts and bring my attention into the moment. Because I had more time to observe, I became more curious, slowing down to look at details that I would have missed before.

Gradually, I built up a collection of interesting images from my walks that I realized were perfect prompts for writing little stories or poems. I began to set myself the challenge to write an accompanying poem for my favourite photos using the Japanese Haiku format of three lines. Then I would add the poem to my image in a text box, and upload it to my blog or Instagram account as a record of my days.

I hope you’ll be inspired to have a go at creating photo stories. If you upload your photo stories to Instagram, do consider adding the hashtag #CulturalCwtsh – it would be wonderful to share and be inspired by each other’s work.

Equipment needed

• Smartphone or camera
• Pen and Paper