TAKING A MOMENT

As a photographer and an accredited psychotherapist, Annie Green-Armytage knows the value of looking after her mental wellbeing, even in the midst of shooting to deadline

- Annie Green - Armytage

Having spent more than 20 years working in editorial and privately commissioned photography, there are still times when it all gets too much. My main specialism is gardens and plants, and this brings its own special stresses. As well as the normal challenges of online image theft, equipment failure and last-minute changes to the brief, garden photographers also have to contend with the weather.

Rain and wind do not play well with garden photography. Neither does getting up at 3am to arrive in a garden to a grey, dreary start to the day when the weather apps have all promised a golden sunrise.

More recently, climate change is playing a growing part in unpredictability. This spring, for example, our normally desert-dry

East Anglia has had a great deal of rain, leaving plants dying and singularly un-photogenic in waterlogged gardens.

Changing my mindset to accept what actually is, rather than what I wanted to happen, is the only helpful way out of this.

Acceptance of events outside our control is not limited to photography, needless to say and for me, a lifelong control freak, it's still something of a work in progress.