Palik, D. (2025). Embodying the wild woman: An organic inquiry into the transformative potential of nature-based portrait photography for self-connection [Unpublished Master’s thesis]. Alef Trust & Liverpool John Moores University.
This qualitative study explored how nature-based portrait sessions empower women to deepen their self-connection. Using the methodological approach of organic inquiry and drawing from art-based research, the study recruited six women to participate in a nature-based photoshoot and engage in three interviews each to track their experiences before the photoshoot, immediately after, and upon viewing the resulting images. Results revealed an overarching theme of the photoshoot serving as a ritual for self-exploration, with six interconnected subthemes: emotional responses and self-reflection, presence and embodied awareness, self-love and self-acceptance, connection to nature, encounters with the sacred, and the role of the photographer as co-creator and space holder. These themes point to an expanded view of self-connection as including both intrapersonal and interpersonal or transpersonal (beyond self) elements. These findings suggest that nature-based portraiture, when held as ritual and guided with intention, can facilitate meaningful self-connection by integrating embodied, relational, and transcendent aspects of experience.
