I spend a lot of time at home, and I have for a long time now. Between being a stay-at-home mom and now working on building my photography business, home is so much more than just my nest! The truth is I don’t tire of it. Sure sometimes I long for the road a bit, especially since our travel days are on hold for a while, but really home is what I love best.
You see a lot of photographs from amazing locations, and it’s easy to get drawn into the trap of thinking “oh if I could only go places like that, then I would be able to make amazing photos also.” I don’t think this is true at all. In fact, I will launch the possibly controversial idea that it’s pretty easy to make a photograph in Paris or Rome or standing in the shadow of the pyramids, but working in familiar surroundings is where you REALLY stretch your creative muscles.
As Sam Levenson said:
Love at first sight is easy to understand; it’s when two people have been looking at each other for a lifetime that it becomes a miracle.
My home is the love I’ve been looking at for nearly 16 years. It’s familiar, beloved, and messy! My home is also populated by some of the people I love most, and have loved for over 16 years: a beloved place full of beloveds, although one of them is only home for short periods now (making that time even more precious).
So recently, over the course of a few days, I loaded up my Lomo MCA camera, which I’ve only used maybe twice, and decided to photograph my day-to-day. These are the things I cherish, the times I cherish. This is the place that feeds me, and I never get tired of photographing it but it sure is challenging to look at it in a new way.
Changes around the house, unless you’re one of those people who constantly rearranges the furniture (I salute you! I bet it’s really clean under your sofa.) are usually subtle, small things. Maybe you hang a new painting or photo. Maybe, as with us, the wind breaks your patio umbrella so you’re winging it with the trees until you can afford to replace it. Over time, maybe bigger things transform, but in my experience what changes most is the inhabitants, and that includes me.
For example, the feline inhabitants of our house changed about 3 years ago. And boy did that make a difference!
They are spoiled rotten, but they also spoil us with their cuteness and affection, so it all evens out. Love is not a contest, and it doesn’t keep score.
Now I’m not trying to say, by sharing an entire roll of film made around the house, that these are the best photographs ever made. I’m not trying to say they are even halfway decent. But they reflect the reality of my life and therefore they are more precious to me than a frame snapped on the Champs Elysée, or even my all time most aha-moment photo of the Nuns on the Bus I made when I was 26 in Rome. We live in a real world, not an AI simulation. It’s worth photographing – and preserving.
So how can I inspire you today? Have you photographed your everyday life? Have you really looked at it, really seen it? How is the light there?
Even the humble moments are worth a look.
What about your neighborhood, the routes you drive and walk every day? When was the last time you paid attention more than just not crashing the car or running a light?
Listen to this girl: she wants you to look. She wants you to see! (She also wants her next meal, but that’s a realm outside of the camera.)
When I think about the amount of time I’ve put into my garden, it occurs to me how sad it would be not to photograph it. . . . and boy do I ever wander around it making photos on just about a daily basis! It’s a constant source of delight for me.
So here you have it: a whole (short, hand-rolled) roll of 35mm film around my house and hood with the Lomography MCA. Thank you for looking, and I hope you feel inspired to take a closer look around you this coming week.
Should you happen to be inspired to hire me to make similar photos of your daily life around your wonderful home, please contact me! This kind of work is very close to my heart.
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