Focus Positiu: Building a Community Around Photography and Wellbeing
Co-founded with Gemma Calmet and Sabina Calmet
Why this existsSomeone who had stopped leaving the house started taking one photograph a day of things they could see from inside. Everyday objects. Light through a window. Something small. They woke up each morning thinking about what to photograph next. Until one day, they went outside, because they were looking for a new image.
Their psychologist asked where they had come across the idea. They said: "I discovered Focus Positiu."
That is what the project is for.
How it startedIn October 2023, Gemma Calmet — psychologist, wellbeing practitioner, and someone with a deep local network built over years of professional practice — sent me a message. She had an idea. She saw me as the right person to help bring it to reality.
The idea was straightforward: a photography competition that was genuinely open to everyone. Not the closed world of professional photography contests, where the same names circulate, and the same aesthetics win. Something inclusive, positive, and grounded in a real belief — that taking photographs is a form of self-care.
The third founding member was Sabina, who took responsibility for everything the project looks and feels like. The logo, the exhibition design, the branding, the visual and tonal language that runs through every social media post, every printed piece, every physical touchpoint. Without Sabina, Focus Positiu would have had an idea and a strategy. With her, it had an identity.
The three of us built it from scratch.
The philosophyFocus Positiu is backed by evidence. Photography as therapy is documented — the act of looking for something worth capturing shifts attention, builds mindfulness, and creates a daily practice of noticing the world rather than retreating from it. We’ve explored the psychology and science behind this in depth.
But the philosophy also has a social dimension. Spreading positivity at a time when it's easy to be negative. Raising awareness of emotional education. Making a competition that doesn't require a certain camera, a certain skill level, or a certain kind of eye — just a willingness to look.
The non-cash prizes reflect this directly. Every prize offered by an allied company is a wellbeing experience — something that provides care, encourages human connection, or creates a moment of disconnection from the noise. No cash. No vouchers for things that don't align. The prizes are part of the message.
Building the community before the competition existedBefore the first edition launched, we went through their own Instagram accounts looking for people who took photographs with both precision and sensitivity. We also looked for local personalities who shared the positive mindset the project was built around.
We invited them to a presentation at Tercer Segona, a coworking space in Manresa. These people trusted us enough to come without knowing who else would be there. They were asked for one thing: help spread the word, and take part in the first edition.
That group became the ambassador network. They share updates without being asked. They show up at galas and exhibitions. Over time, the network has grown to include representatives from allied companies and winners from every edition. It is a living community, not a mailing list.
This was a deliberate strategic choice. Focus Positiu had no advertising budget and no platform at the start. The only way to reach people was through people who already believed. So the first job was finding those people and giving them something worth believing in, and easy to share content.
The alliesThe allied companies — among them Oller del Mas, Món Sant Benet, Pons Joiers, Teatre Kursaal, JOVIAT, and Tercer Segona — were chosen because their values aligned with the project's.
Some were approached because of that alignment. Others, like JOVIAT, saw the values and reached out themselves.
The relationship is reciprocal: they offer prizes that mean something, they gain exposure at the gala, and they become part of a community that reflects well on everyone in it.
The galaThe gala is where the philosophy becomes physical.
We personally greet every guest at the door of the theatre by name. Inside, a reserved ticket waits for each person in an envelope with their name on it. Seating is planned — who will appear on stage, who knows who, who should be sitting near whom. Nothing is left to chance, but nothing feels managed.
Political speeches are kept short. The protagonists of the evening are the winners. Each prize is presented by a representative of the company offering it. Between award categories there is live music from local artists, or a short talk from someone whose story connects to photography or wellbeing — across three editions, a war survivor turned athlete, a person who recovered from an eating disorder, and a photographer whose work honours the often overlooked value of elderly people in society.
We close the evening with a short speech. A group photograph. Then everyone moves to the entrance hall for a glass of wine.
The intention running through every detail is the same: guests should never feel like potential content. They are not asked to post, to share, or to perform their attendance. They are asked only to show up, to trust that their time won't be wasted, and to leave with something — an idea, a connection, a feeling — that they didn't arrive with.
That is the intangible that no brief could specify. It's also the thing people remember.
What Focus Positiu isIt is a self-initiated project with no external brief and no guaranteed budget, built on a belief that photography can be a tool for wellbeing, that culture can address social problems, and that the way you treat people — at every touchpoint, from the envelope with their name on it to the conversation at the door — is itself a form of content strategy.
It is also, three editions in, something that has changed lives. Quietly, without anyone asking to be credited for it.
