Shutter Sisters

The Art of Documenting the Beautifully Mundane

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Recently, I shared with another photographer my hesitation to identify myself as an “artist.”  I don’t have any formal training in photography or fine art or even mediocre art.  I’m not the type of person to spend serious time in art museums, and I am more than a little bit embarrassed at my lack of knowledge of famous photographers.  You see, when I take photos, I consider my camera a documentary tool.  My first thought is not about making art but about capturing the humdrum moments that comprise our lives.

So when I read Jen’s beautiful post this week about the courage to let it click, I realized that I don’t need better credentials to embrace my inner artist; I need courage.  And by courage, I love how our lovely sister Brené Brown points to the original definition of courage as being “to speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.”  If you’ve never heard this definition of courage before, let it sink in for a while.  It’s something all of us in these fear mongering days need to soak into the core of our beings.

Well, I think that one way for me to “tell all my heart” or my own story is through my photos of the mundane and yet fleeting and often beautiful moments of my life as a mom, wife, daughter, sister, and friend.  These are the stories I have a compulsion to document, and this is my inner artist that I have the courage to finally recognize. 

“Hi.  My name is Sarah-Ji, and I am an artist of documenting the beautifully mundane.”  There.  I said it.  Now to go about life embracing it…

How about you?  What is the story of your inner artist?  Feel free to share links to images that tell your story–ordinary, mundane, profound, beautiful or all of the above.

 

Comments

  11. I am willing to call myself an artist, finally. An artist documenting… what?? I don’t have a tight definition of that yet. For me it’s mostly the beauty of my everyday life. My backyard and garden, hiking in Maine, our CSA farm, my neighborhood, my growing children. There’s beauty in it all and I’m drawn (compelled really) each day to capture it.

    http://fimby.tougas.net/magnificent_and_mundane

  15. Mundane really is beautiful when it tells a story about life… whether it be yours or someone else’s. I LOVE at-home shots where the subject is busy just doing their thing… trying on new clothes on top of the clothes she’s wearing and making cute faces in front of a busy bookshelf.

    http://www.dolcepics.com/dailypic/vaaaaaaah/

    I embrace "real-life" captured in photographs. Lovely!