Scene From Home – Week Three

This past week took us past the month mark, and was my third week playing along with the Scene From Home brief.

I’m not putting too much pressure on myself to create anything special but am embracing the idea of picking up the camera whenever I see something interesting or with a little bit of potential. These photographs aren’t my standard fare but this isn’t a standard situation so one has to work with what is available.

I had one photograph from my previous week’s efforts which was rather successful on Instagram (at least by my standards) but I didn’t want to start repeating it because it almost feels like shooting fish in a barrel … I would be standing in the same place (my balcony) pointing the camera in the same direction (down) at the same time of day (morning, when the shadows are long) waiting for someone (our fish in this metaphor) to walk through. It was enough to pull the trick once, but it already felt a bit like a trick (taking advantage of the elements that make for a popular Instagram photograph) the first time.

With all that said, I found myself on the balcony one morning, and saw a cleaner coming down the street disinfecting bins. I knew that her next stop would be the bins opposite my flat, and while I had been wanting to avoid pulling the same trick, this seemed like a good moment to make an exception as I actually had an interesting documentary moment to add to the contrast of light and shadow. It wasn’t a purely aesthetic image. This is how I justify it to myself, at any rate.

The following are my other observations from different moments throughout the week, whenever something caught my eye for whatever reason. That’s essentially how I normally approach photography but now I’m doing it exclusively within my house. Hopefully this week there will be some more things that spark some previously unawakened interest, and in the remaining weeks on lockdown. News here in Spain has been more positive this week – which is obviously good for many reasons, and may it continue that way. We’re not out of the woods yet, and won’t be able to rush out into the world as if everything were normal, but I do hope we might be allowed out to exercise within the not too distant future now … but until that’s the case, it’s day by day, week by week stuff and I’ll keep playing along with Scene Frome Home to keep myself entertained.