Though he doesn’t know it, Australian musician Ben Lee inspired this series. In July 2013 I attended an event hosted by the Conscious Club, an organisation that promotes mindful and authentic living.
In addition to performing some of his music, Ben shared his experience of living more consciously. He urged us to ‘make our own medicine’; to go out into the world and make it a better place by doing something meaningful. It was a time of great distress for me so the idea of helping myself to heal while being mindful resonated with me in a big way. Before the evening was over the Consciousness Series was born.
In the weeks that followed, I created a list of twenty-five characteristics and emotions – ones that are important to me and that I want to attract more of. The idea was to interpret what each one meant for me, conceptualise how I was going to represent that in a photograph and then create the image.
I am incredibly proud of the end result, which is bold and sometimes rather raw, but it was the process of really thinking about each of these subjects that helped me crystallise what was meaningful to me and that I found to be the most ‘medicinal’.
The Consciousness Series was my first attempt at using my photography as artistic expression. I look forward to making more medicine at some point in the future.
All photographs by Melita Caulfield.
This One Too 