26 Sep Capturing Your Home

Photographing your home on a regular basis will help you “see” it again and, in turn, maximize your connection with the place you call home. You will look at your place with a new perspective and will be aware when anything starts to change. By taking pictures of your house, you’re not only tracking the cycle of time as it affects your space but you’re also becoming a witness to the life that it expresses in such subtle and charming ways that you would not capture by simply looking at it with your own eyes. Within the framework of a photo, details become important and obvious.

Here is a simple way for you to capture your own home:

1. Go outside on a day when the weather is cooperative. Stand out a ways from the front of your home and take as many photos of your house as you feel necessary. Move in gradually, taking more shots as you go. Eventually, you will be right in front of your front door.

2. Assess the photographs and decide which one best represents your home. It may be a close-up of the front door or it may be one that includes the door and part of the house, or it may be the entire place. Select the one that says “home” to you.

3. Put it in a frame or stand it up somewhere obvious. This starts an engagement process, which may involve simply looking at the photograph from time to time without much of any conscious communication. Eventually, you may find yourself more actively connecting and engaging.

4. When some time has passed, maybe even a whole season, go back outside to the exact spot of the first photo and take another one. Replace the first photo with the new one or get another frame so both can be displayed. You are now starting a conversation with your home with a past and present image. You get to see how it feels to relate to it under different circumstances.

5. Repeat Step #4 as needed, but no less than a total of four times.

It is important to keep the same angle and distance on these photos so that you aren’t distracted by different information. If you decide to display many versions of your home over the course of time, I urge you to be careful so that this project doesn’t turn into a form of clutter. Be selective as you acquire more and more photographs.

As these images find a place in your home, they will also find a place in your heart and you will look at them as if you were looking at a dear friend—-which is what this is all about.