#the background was supposed to be CD colors and it wound up looking like an 80's jcpenny photoshoot backdrop

[singsofecho]

So there's this Protector of Concord Dawn

[aperturealex]

Project 1

When I first sat down to put together some photographs for this project, I didn’t really have any clear direction at first. I’m not so sure why, but when I’m told to ‘document the everyday’, capturing the mundane moments purposely feels harder than it initially sounds. To me, I looked at it this way: I was supposed to be taking photographs of the everyday - things that I normally wouldn’t be thinking about. All of a sudden, now that I had this project, each photograph I took had some level of importance to me (given a grade hangs on all of this after all) so it felt like everything was obscured because of it. Instead of taking photographs that were of these mundane things, I frequently told myself “Nah, this wouldn’t make for a good photograph” which wound up becoming a larger impasse than what I would’ve wanted.

Eventually, I told myself “Screw it, look at something, push the damn button, and don’t think of it until the due date is coming close”, which made things go a lot smoother. Some of these wound up being things I’d set up after thinking about taking a picture and then just getting an idea. Some of these are a little more ‘Instagram-y’ than I’d normally want them to be, but hey,

push the damn button. Not much more rhyme or reason required.

For this first set, I stuck to taking a picture in my apartment for the first five days. Most of these I took at the crack of dawn in my PJs without really thinking much about it. It was more that I’d wake up, go about my early morning (roommate is an early riser so when I hear things moving at 4AM I’m up), and by the time I was lucid enough to remember, I’d my camera and take a picture of the first thing that’d come to mind.

These are relatively simple so I’ll go item by item. First thing that I usually see when I wake up is my nightstand which has my medications that I have to keep close. It’s a bit of a mess and I suppose that says something about me but it’s an organized mess where I get to what I need when I need it. Following that is a picture of my dining room. I can’t express enough how much I hate how the apartments here make it difficult to have things in your living space that brightens things up, or maybe I just really really suck with interior decorating, but this is usually the first thing that registers once I get up and out of my room. I’ll sound like a shut-in for saying this but it’s a little depressing, so I tend to keep to my own room where I have posters and the like slapped to the wall. After that are my hoodies and sweatshirts. I don’t think I ever grew out of my teenage angst phase because I really love wearing these things, and I’ve worn them enough to feel naked without one. Following that are two pictures I took once my morning juices were flowing (probably two hours after waking up) where I’m either watching something on Netflix or playing games, like WoW, which I’ve lost my soul to. I tend to dump hours on end with either or when I get into it, like binge watching something or forgetting I have a life altogether and playing games, but these are always activities that I’m doing with someone else in one aspect or another - either playing with someone, or watching something that a friend or family member recommended. 

Okay, these ones feel so very instagram it almost hurts. Almost. I drink a lot of hot drinks, partly due to a condition I have so warmer things feel easier on my throat. I also have way too mugs in my house where most of these were taken. I spent about a week with my sister when I took these so there’s a little bit of variance when it comes to location. I tend to go for drinks I can make sweet, usually teas too since less acid and the like. On top of that, I’ll go for it at any hour of the day, though usually I’ll save the teas for the morning. Caffeine and all that. Bottom line though? I’m an absolute sucker for sweet hot drinks, like that hot cocoa or apple cider, which I SWEAR has to have some sort of drug in it because it’s an addiction at some point.

These sets of photographs I took while I was away from my apartment while visiting family. This then sort of becomes a look at the mundane at my old homestead rather the one that I’m currently occupying. I tend to get way more sleep here since the room I stay in is on the second floor, and the early risers in the house are downstairs, so I don’t get up as early here as I would normally. When I make my way down to the living area, the first thing that would catch anyone’s eyes on a normal day is the line of post-it notes with doodles of faces on them (sorry for the poor quality, that was a phone photograph), a little something my father and older sister started collecting. The two of them leave them on our coffee pot depending on who’s first to the punch when making it, and I suppose over time they started to collect them. The picture below was I took in the morning in our music room. I don’t think I realized it until after I looked at it a second time that the lighting made it look a bit creepier than I intended. That mask might be haunted, just saying. The one below it is when the day’s in more progressed but I’m still not quite in the full swing of things. Forgive me if my ugly-as-sin feet have blinded you. Below that is ONE of the collection of CDs (both of my parents were musicians), and below that was a little invader that snuck into our upstairs.

I usually go on walks when I’m at my father and sister’s house. We don’t have a huge amount of space but we are right next to this ranch. Wasn’t able to catch any photographs of the horses, but I felt the garden was sufficient enough. My parents and my siblings helped set it up in some fashion or another and it’s been here for years, so there was a lot to capture here each morning and afternoon I went through. Between my father doing the majority of the planting and the old antiques my mother inherited, there’s plenty to find. I think my favorite part about it would be the garden gnomes my older sister has set up around it. The last picture is actually one that wound up being incredibly weathered to the point I had to touch it up (mildly proud of it to be honest, and there’s some funny stories behind it). The brown colors from how it looks in the afternoon makes it rather scenic during sunset. I don’t think my sister and father will stay in that house for long, so in truth, the scenic look will be rather missed.

For this last set, I’m going to risk sounding a little sanctimonious. Over the weeks I was doing this project, I learned that my sister was volunteering at a new shelter. I’ve been doing volunteer work since high school, doing things for Key Club, and continuing it in my college career through things like Student Ambassadors at the community college I attended, and now is something I maintain on my own whenever I get the opportunity to. In case some of the other photographs didn’t give it away, we are, indeed, a cat family, so when given the opportunity to come along with my sister to this cat shelter, there was a bit more than an excited “HELL YES” that escaped me when given the offer. Some of these cats are signed up for adoption, so I’m hoping, as much as I’ll miss of them, that they won’t be back when I return. The top one though is one my sister may adopt (hopefully, at least), and the bottom one, I swear I looks too much like something you could print on a bag of cat food, barring the stalker in the background that’s out of focus.

So that was my attempt to ‘capture the mundane’. I’m sure others will have things that are far more intriguing, however, I like how a number of these came out. Certainly room for improvement, I won’t deny that, however, it was a fun project nonetheless.