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| Shadowy display London, ON August 2023 This photo originally shared on Instagram |
I know what you’re thinking: Shopping malls? Seriously?
The why is simple: it’s close to where we live.
Besides, photography, at least to me, isn’t about the rare and the spectacular. It’s about the ordinary and the everyday. Because to my eyes, there’s plenty of spectacular close to home. We just have to find it, often at our feet. Or when we’re picking fruit up at the grocery. Or passing an empty bus stop. Or wandering past window displays at the local mall.
I’ve been teasing the extraordinary out of scenes most would dismiss as mundane for as long as I can remember. Because that’s where most of us spend the vast majority of our time. And the daily commute, the dog walk, and the hastily arranged breakfast. They all deserve some camera love just as much as the iconic touristy stuff we did on our last vacation.
I’m just old enough to remember when photography was film-based, so we metered every shot and saved it for so-called special occasions. Vacations, birthdays, graduations, weddings, whatever, the plan was always the same. We’d get dressed up. The camera would come out. The smiles would be put on. The rote photos would be taken.
Then the camera gathered dust until the next big day rolled around. The ordinary and the everyday went unrecorded.
The shift to digital has removed barriers to photography. It’s opened up moments that might have never been sufficiently “special”. Our cameras are no longer things we have to remember to throw over our shoulder before we head out: they’re always with us, in our phones in our pockets.
And we no longer balance taking a shot against our monthly budget. We simply shoot when something moves us, however plain or weird or unspecial it might be. Or at least we should.
Because everything is special.
Maybe I’m wasting my time with all this, but it makes me happy.
And if it makes others happy, too, then that’s a bonus.
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