“I am fascinated by the images within the images. What an inspiration. I was taken aback by the beauty, sensuality and obvious love put into each and every one.”

John, Expressive Arts Therapist

Artist Statement

I have been a photographer for the past 45 years, getting my start at the age of 17 with a vintage RolleiFlex camera. Five years later I started to study modern dance professionally and began work as movement arts educator. Photography was solely a personal contemplative practice for me until 2007, when I began exhibiting my work as a healing art in various venues, including galleries, healthcare facilities and churches.

I am a somatic movement specialist and an interdisciplinary artist, dedicated to the aesthetic exploration and integration of the inner & outer landscapes. I guide myself and others in "embodying nature" - becoming present to our interior so as to be more attuned to our environment. The process of embodying the natural world - finding places in the wild where I can settle and open up my sensory awareness through somatic practices of breath, contact, stillness, and movement - is the underpinning of my art. As I immerse myself in the environment, I become a sandpiper darting and dodging the waves, or a lizard on my belly in the sand, shifting perspectives to perceive my surroundings in unaccustomed ways. A liminal world emerges in this timeless rhythm I inhabit between focused attention and spacious wandering, one intimate relationship leading to the next. Out of this sensorium of light, motion, color and form, images like contemporary paintings reveal themselves to my eye. I call this “NatureBeingArt” – the embedded aesthetic of the natural world made visible.

Read a delightful interview with Victoria Thomas from 2021 HERE

Listen to Jamie on the One in Nature podcast HERE

I live rurally where I can be close to the ground, steward the land and be absorbed by the seasons. I am privileged to act as an emissary of the natural world and share its frequencies of beauty to help deepen our collective love for this wondrous creation. As the poet and essayist Wendell Berry wrote: "We know enough of our own history by now to be aware that people exploit what they have merely concluded to be of value, but they defend what they love."

The Earth offers itself freely to us; it is only right and just to give back in return. Appreciation of these images and online videos (Breathing Room & 7 Days of Beauty) can be shown through a donation to the organization of your choice that is helping preserve the planet and all of its inhabitants. You can find a list HERE

10% of all proceeds from NatureBeingArt sales are donated annually to Earth Regeneration projects and Environmental Advocacy organizations. Purchase information can be found HERE

Jamie McHugh is a fine art photographer, somatic movement specialist (www.somaticexpression.com) and interdisciplinary artist. He has been working in the fields of dance, somatic education, and the therapeutic arts for the past 40 years. Jamie lives and works in the Hudson Valley, and teaches seminars internationally and online. Read his resume here

Jamie at work - photo by Neil Silverman.

"No matter how slow the film, spirit always stands still long enough for the photographer it has chosen."  - Minor White

“Nobody sees a flower, really – it is so small – we haven’t time, and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.”              - Georgia O’Keefe