It’s only just over a year
since I left my exotic, tropical life in rural Cambodia. Can you blame me if, in comparison, I
find suburban Britain just a little dull?
Yet perhaps there is beauty –
or at least interest – to be found in the ordinary, even here in middle-class,
middle of the road Oxfordshire?
Well let’s see! As a new year resolution, I am undertaking a
‘365 project’. All I
have to do is take a photo each day, and upload it onto a website called
blipfoto.com.
I first heard of this idea
from my wonderful colleague, Alison, now in Phnom Penh. It sounded pretty rubbish to me!
Though you can do the actual
uploading later, I really didn’t like the way the website restricts your daily
entry to photos actually taken on that day (information on the date and time of
digital photos is included as part of its digital ‘fingerprint’ - did you know that?).
What this means is if you
want a daily photo, you actually have to take a photo every day; no delaying to the end of the week, no awaiting that illusive free moment, no filling in
with previous snaps.
Constraining? Not a bit of it! Rather, this structure is strangely liberating; committing to taking a photo a day has already made me more
alert to my surroundings.
For example, yesterday I photographed a postbox which I cycle past twice a day – yet I hadn’t even noticed it had
been painted gold for the Olympics. I certainly hadn’t appreciated it is an unusual (if slightly
ugly) 1970s design, one not even listed on the Bath Postal Museum’s website!
And the day before I snapped
a painting in the corridor at work.
I must have walked past it countless times, but my desire for a daily
image led me to look again - and it’s rather intriguing. At first the bright colours suggest a happy family. But then why
is only one person smiling? And if
they’re a family, why are they all girls?
There are risks: it is not hard to unleash the obsessive in me,
and this could be yet another way to distract myself from More Important Things (though what
could be more important that appreciating my surroundings?). And the search for an impressive image
may take away the fun - especially now I discover that another dear friend,
Zia, is also taking the challenge - yes, that's the guy who just had a solo exhibition
of stunning black and white images in Nairobi. No pressure then!
But really it’s not much
different to my weekly blog – you, dear reader, are secondary; it is essentially personal (or selfish?), a way to help me be more
appreciative and understanding of the world, just pictorially rather than
verbally this time.
I do belive that if I can be just a bit more
aware of the beauty – or even just the interest – which surrounds me, I will value what I have and where I am a whole lot more.
Just as Buddhists aim for mindfulness - a calm awareness of the body,
sensations, thoughts, even consciousness itself - so I will find beauty at The
Plain and enlightenment on Divinity Road.
Perhaps I’m not so far from Cambodia after all.
So off I go in search of
today’s image. Perhaps we don’t have to go half way round the world to find
something special. This year I’ll
try to find a little magic right here, in the everyday. Every day.
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