How Travel Photography Inspires Lisa Bettany to Battle Injury and Heartbreak

Lisa Bettany:

Like many young Canadians growing up on the prairies, I learned how to skate on an outdoor rink. I was a feisty 3-year-old with a zest for dramatic expression and an insatiable hunger to compete. Figure skating became my passion and purpose until I was 21. One slight miscalculation lead to a horrible fall which broke my back and plunged my life into a spiral of pain and hopelessness.

I spent the next 8 years in darkness. Immobilized in my bed, I would stare up at the ceiling and feel so powerless. I cut out photographs of beautiful places from travel magazines and stuck them on my walls. At the time, I felt like I would never get to see those places in real life. I could hardly walk and couldn’t sit for longer than 5 minutes. Traveling to the next room was trouble enough, let alone traveling the world.

I started following Lisa Bettany’s work shortly after she embarked upon her journey with photography. I knew that she had some sort of injury, which led her to hanging up her ice skates, but I never knew it was so serious.

She has always been an inspiration, and I don’t foresee that changing anytime soon. You can find her on Twitter, Instagram, and on her site.

Photo credit: Lisa Bettany