Henry Ford Detroit
Health care centers are increasingly looking to nature photography to help add some color, warmth, and serenity to normally visually cold, sterile, bland environments. This is one of the latest installations of my work at a hospital in Detroit in one of those environments. This is the radiology corridor at Henry Ford Hospital Detroit, where three 36×48 inch panels of landscape photographs from Michigan hang. There is certainly an interesting paradox going on between the display environment and the photographs.
While one could say that the environment and lighting doesn’t flatter the imagery, (as in most “gallery” situations), the flip side of this is that the imagery allows an escape from the environment. This hallway didn’t offer much for those that have to walk it everyday. For an often stressful environment like a hospital, this can only be a welcome addition. There has been an ongoing shift in health care facility design towards changing the old ways of looking at these places.
Nothing could be a better example of this than the newly designed Henry Ford West Bloomfield hospital that took advantage of evidence based design concepts in a new construction.
It was good to see the pieces finally up and many, many people walking past them. It seems like a high traffic corridor. As my wife Lisa wisely pointed out, “it looks like the hospital’s gift to the employees. All in all, it was a nice visit to Detroit, followed up with a great dinner at Small Plates in the Broadway district.
Mark, congratulations on having your photographs displayed here and more importantly, for contributing to the wellness of others (I would imagine both personnel as well as their patients!).
Thanks Diane.
I can only chime in with the previous comments. Those photos will certainly add in a very positive sense to the atmosphere in that clinic, for patients and employees alike.
Thanks Thomas
Thank you David and Heather.
Wow, this is really great Mark. It does seem like a natural choice for such places to want to bring such lovely and peaceful images into their space. I’m sure the staff and patients appreciate and enjoy them very much. Congrats on the exhibit. (Also, I see your blog was listed as one of 50 Amazing Nature Photography Bloggers on photography-colleges.org. Congrats!)
This is a great post because you are setting the example for what can be done. It gives us readers ideas. Also, what a boon to the hospital(s). It’s high time that hospitals provide a more healing environment. Besides, anything new, innovative and earth-friendly is probably sorely needed and welcome in Detroit.
Excellent, Mark. I’m sure that your photos will bring smiles and uplifted spirits to those who view them!
Thanks Paul – sorry for some reason your comment was binned to my spam que and I just noticed it.
I believe our images do have the power to bring forth emotions, which heal.
I have seen hallways such as this one which always seemed to contain images that had that “been there, seen that” feel.
Here you have shown another direction that many are finally taking, ….. thankfully!
Excellent work my friend!
Michael
Thanks everyone
they look great Mark – what a nice idea 🙂
Finally has someone realized that hospitals are places full of suffer and so it might be good idea to brighten up their gloomy atmosphere with something that give suffering minds some pleasure or at least a short time relief. It’s great that your photos will help people at the Henry Ford Hospital Detroit.
By the end of last year I visited a Blood Donation Centre in Ostrava, Czech Republic, where a couple of my colleagues started their exhibition.
That’s great Mark, we are actually going to build a large hospital in our area in the next couple of years and I have been approached about buying and displaying many of my images.
Jeez Earl – you are not suppose to reveal the sources of such rumors!
Mark, rumor has it your photos have some magical healing powers which make them in high demand for hospitals and such…oh wait, you started that rumor. 😉
All kidding aside, your photos look wonderful (I checked out the ones on Facebook as well) and certainly bring beauty and a sense of calm to places they can do the most good. It’s wonderful for them and also wonderful for you. Congratulation to all!
Nice work, Mark! They look good – I agree, it’s nice when places use art to make the environment a little more uplifting. The local sheriff’s department bought one of my prints a few years ago to put in their trauma room where they take recent victims of violence – they thought the image would have a pacifying effect. I like thinking that that print is doing some good somewhere…
The hospitals in my area have wonderful arts programs. I’ve been so busy, but I really need to look into more of them.
That looks spectacular. Are these mounted and laminated paper prints, or canvas?
Thanks Roberta. They are paper prints mounted on very thin Cintra board.