My fascination with the mundane: A photo essay
From bird watching at breakfast to cement blocks outside vacant storefronts, beauty can be found even in the dullest of places.
For breakfast last week, I ate toast with peanut butter and when I sat down at the kitchen table, I noticed a bird perched on the hydro line outside the window. There was something simplistically beautiful about the bird, how it sat there watching the world go by: cars driving in a rush to get to work, people walking to avoid getting to work. The landscape was dull, a reminder that winter was about to creep into my life, uninvited. But the bird. The bird was beautiful. I took a photo of it—nothing fancy, just a quick snapshot with my iPhone—and then, a few moments later, the bird was gone.
(Photo 1 & 2)
There’s a book by Patti Smith that I turn to often. Titled: A Book of Days, the collection showcases Smith’s craft in documentary practices, offering snapshots into her world, from daily cups of coffee to the graves of beloved heroes. The photographs in the collection are nothing short of normal day-to-day life. Much of the imagery is tainted in shades of gray, partly due to Smith’s use of analog film but also because her subjects tend to be void of colour themselves. Both my experience of watching the bird and my observations of how Smith sees the world around her reminded me of how the simplest of things can evoke the most meaningful reflections.
Later that day, I walked around my neighbourhood with a new set of eyes. Suddenly, things like abandoned playground structures or random cement blocks began to hold more interest than they ever had before. It made me think about how there are so many instances of beauty that we miss in a day and how fleeting a moment can be when you don’t take the time to appreciate it. For the rest of my walk, I set out to capture these fragments of mundane beauty, noting how objects of colour stood out or how the composition of the image could turn something boring into something compelling.
(Photo 3 & 4)
Perhaps the main takeaway here is that we can miss so much when we don’t take the time to notice. With the hustle and bustle of our everyday lives, locating moments of quiet simplicity can become a rarity. And maybe it’s just me, although I’m sure people like Patti Smith can relate, but I almost find the mundane more fascinating than I do the extraordinary. Like how a random bird can bring out more emotion out of me than maybe a renowned painting would. Or how the light from an abandoned parking garage can serve as a symbol of hope amidst the looming darkness of winter. I suppose, then, that this all becomes a lesson in noticing; how we can find art and beauty in the dullest of places. So now, it’s your turn. Go find your version of the bird on the hydro line. What meaning can you take away from the things that usually go unnoticed?
(Photo 5 & 6)
Arts & Entertainment Editor (Volume 51); Staff Writer (Volume 50) — Keira is going into her fourth year at UTM pursuing a double major in Communications, Culture, Information, and Technology (CCIT) and Professional Writing and Communications (PWC). When she’s not working or studying, you can find her nose deep in a good literary fiction novel, writing movie reviews on Letterboxd, or even training for the marathon that never seems to actually happen! You can connect with Keira on Instagram or LinkedIn.