The Chestermere Public Library’s April Artist of the Month, Wendy Richardson, found photography amid severe depression 14 years ago.
“I didn’t think I was going to survive it. I did a lot of praying, and all of a sudden, first thing in the morning around 6 a.m. I started waking up with severe panic attacks,” Richardson said.
“I couldn’t breathe, so I had to go outside to breathe the air, and I kept seeing this pink glow in the sky,” she said.
Richardson decided she wanted to investigate where the pink glow was coming from.
“I didn’t care if the coyotes ate me, or if cars hit me, or anything. I just didn’t care, I had no fear,” Richardson said.
Adding, “It was about a four-block walk, but it took me about four months to get there.”
Richardson found the pink glow coming from a train tunnel, and she decided to go through the tunnel towards the pink glow.
“I could hear the cars rumbling above my head, and I just didn’t care if they fell on my head,” Richardson said.
“I walked through the tunnel, and what greeted me on the other end was a pink-pink sun starting to crest, the snow was a powder blue, and a huge gust of wind came through my body, and I started to cry,” she said.
“I wasn’t crying because I was sad, it was a cleanse,” she said.
Prior to entering the train tunnel, Richardson only saw black and grey. When she came out of the train tunnel, she began to see colour once again.
Richardson walked home and asked to borrow her daughters’ camera to capture the pink glow on the snow and was then inspired to continue going out for walks.
“It absolutely helped me with the depression, medication wasn’t helping at all, it was making it worse. The one true thing was walking, and nature was healing for me,” Richardson said.
In the past, Richardson was never interested in photography or waking up to see the sunrise.
“How it became was just so amazing. When I reflect thinking about how I wasn’t going to make it through life anymore, and my healing came through nature, I think ‘Wow, that was truly a miracle,’” she said.
Now, in the early morning, Richardson will go out and enjoy a couple of coffee in the backyard and will take a photograph of anything that catches her eye.
“I do a lot of running back to my house to get my camera,” Richardson said.
“Out of it I’ve got thousands and thousands of pictures,” she said.
Richardson now tells anyone that if they are going to go for a walk, go for 20 minutes, and then they will have to walk back home for 20 minutes.
“All those happy good feelings that we naturally have come to life after a 40-minute walk,” Richardson said.
“There are some days I don’t want to go for a walk, but I have to do something, then I come back from my walk and it changes everything. It’s so simple,” she said.
“There was one day I was walking during the winter, and it was just magnificent, the snow was a pure-pure white, just gorgeous. My feet were getting cold, and I realized I had been out there for three hours,” she added.
Richardson has also experienced many other apparitions.
“On difficult days I would go out to my backyard and I would see things like a happy face balloon floating in my backyard,” Richardson said.
Once, right before a storm, Richardson was in her backyard and noticed the sky had cast colours in the backyard pond.
“I ran in the house and got my camera. When I looked at the photo on my computer, it looked like an angel reflection in the pond, and then, of course, the sky closed up and poured rain,” Richardson said.
She added, “Each and every picture of mine has a story behind it, I know exactly where they are all captured.”
Richardson now has thousands of photos that she has taken around her yard and neighbourhood.
“When I go out to back green space, I face Chestermere, and that’s where I get all of the magnificent sunrises,” she said.
“It’s early morning light that is the healing element, the air is different. The lighting is different and if there is a slight breeze going through the trees, it captures orbs going through the plants. It’s a very short time that it happens,” she said.
Richardson does not edit, or colour correct any of her photographs, instead, she captures colours and uses the natural sunlight.
“I want children to know that they can go into nature and what they see is real,” Richardson said.
“When I share my pictures, I love when the kids come up to me, and they love the photos, and I say, ‘That’s exactly what you see, you just have to slow down and you will see that,’” she said.
Richardson chose not to edit any of her photographs
because she wants to inspire children who may be dealing with depression that they can go outside into nature.
“They can go into the beauty of nature and nobody is going to take that away from them,” Richardson said.
After Richardson captures a photograph that she wants to bring to a market, she finds an antique frame, hand sands it, and cuts all of the matting.
“The frames are all one of a kind,” Richardson added. I got a second chance, and so my frames get a second chance.”
When market time comes, Richardson has about 30 framed photographs ready to go, and she decides which ones she wants to bring with her.
“It’s going eeny-meeny-miney-mo. I change them up. I got through and whatever I feel inside of me that I want to take, is what I take,” she said.
Moving forward, opening up the conversation regarding depression is extremely important for Richardson.
“People are so afraid to talk about their depression,” she said.
Richardson remembers a woman in particular who she shared her journey with, and the woman opened up sharing her own story about living with depression.
“I told her that my journey came through a severe depression, and she said ‘I didn’t know where I was supposed to be today, but I think this is where I was supposed to be talking to you,’ and she started to cry, and told me about her experience with depression,” Richardson said.
“When I open up, there are so many people that open up and tell me their stories. So many people cry, and hug, because somebody else out there is suffering too, it’s not just them, or not just me, and we can speak about it freely and it makes such a difference,” she said.
