A journey around my room
Benedict Brain embarks on a photographic adventure… around his flat to explore the great indoors
Nobody’s going anywhere for a while. International travel is pretty much off the cards this year. It’ll be a while before the national parks and other areas of natural beauty will be opening their arms to visitors. However, this doesn’t mean it’s time to hang up your cameras and take it easy. No! This is the time to hone your photography skills, refine your craft, sharpen your sight and enlighten your vision. It’s time to be creative a little closer to home, or even in it. There are myriad fancypants techniques and homeprojects to experiment with, but, for this feature, we will keep it simple.
In the spirit of photographic adventure we’ll explore the great indoors. Taking inspiration from the 18thcentury writer Xavier de Maistre we’re going on a journey closer to home. His book, Voyage autour de ma
chambre (Voyage Around My Room), published in 1794, saw the author embark on an expedition around his chambers in the tradition of the great travel narratives of the time. De Maistre’s tonguein-cheek travelogue came about after being confined to his quarters for six weeks, the punishment for taking part in an illegal duel, which presumably he won. What is interesting about the work is how he discovers new
and exciting aspects of his familiar surroundings by seeing and describing them in a new light, as if discovering them for the first time in some far-flung corner of the world. The book is still in print today, and apparently, even influenced Nietzsche who went on to proclaim, ‘there are those who know how to make much out of little and a majority of those who know how to make little of much.’
While it might seem a tenuous link, the important lessons to be gleaned from de Maistre’s wise words are that we should approach our all too familiar surroundings with a refreshed vigour. We should see our space with the virgin eyes of an intrepid traveller. Most of us will eagerly and easily find images everywhere and anywhere when we visit a new city or location for the first time; they literally jump out at us. Everything is new, raw, exciting and rich with photographic potential. We snap it up in earnest. So, the first, and most important lesson to photographing in our homes, is to learn to see them again, with fresh, hungry and eager eyes.
Meditation
Before even taking your camera out, it’s worth spending some
time contemplating your surroundings. Meditate on the space and try to dislocate yourself from the context in which you normally engage with it. Become attuned to it with new eyes. Look around for di erent angles, get down on the floor, stand on your head, use a ladder (safely of course). Sometimes you have to be a contortionist to find the right angle. It’s a great test of your photographic skills to create beauty from the confines of the four walls of your own home. Virtually anyone can take a half-decent photo at a honey-spot location at the magic hour in the right conditions. However, learning to see and engage with the everyday and mundane will test your skills and refine your way of seeing.
Love the light
For me, light has become the most important aspect of the creative process while making images in my home. Initially, I was just watching and studying light as it moved across my environment, making note of how it fell on di erent objects and how they, in turn, reflected, refracted and absorbed it.
I’ve always been aware that there is a nice light in my apartment. However, before lockdown, I don’t feel I fully appreciated it. I’ve since become increasingly aware and attuned to the nuances as it slowly slides through my space. In the morning the kitchen and bathroom at one end of the building that faces south-east are bathed in light. By midafternoon, the planet has rotated such that the light soaks the front, main living area. Two large Georgian windows more than make up for my lack of garden. There are a couple of spectacular silver birch trees immediately outside and as they have started to produce leaves, the quality of the light has changed adding a dappled delight to the already lovely rays.
Once you have studied the light and meditated on the space, you can start making images. The luxury of shooting in a safe, dry environment is that you have more time to make subtle changes to the composition and angle of view. You can work with a more deliberate and considered approach. You can review and reshoot relatively easily and perfect the shot.