Home Rituals & Atmosphere
Photograph the Life You’ll Miss One Day
Food, coffee, berries and light through leaves: my favourite subjects, with ideas for photographing and keeping details of everyday life.
If you ask me what I most like to photograph, food and coffee are high on the list.
I also love taking photographs when I go walking in the woods beside my home. Sometimes it is a few berries. Sometimes it is the light coming through the leaves. Small things that catch my eye while I am out.
I am a photographer by background, and that attention to detail carries into how I live and style my home. But the things I enjoy photographing are often very accessible: something to eat, a cup of coffee, something growing nearby.
Those are useful places to begin if you would like to keep more photographs of ordinary life. You already have subjects. The next step is noticing which ones mean something to you.
Start with something you enjoy looking at
For me, food and coffee give me a reason to pick up the camera. For you, it might be a favourite breakfast, something you have baked or the chair where you spend a little time each morning.
Choose something you actually enjoy. It is easier to notice details when the subject interests you in the first place.
If you are photographing your coffee, you could include more than the cup. The book beside it, the table underneath it or the view from your seat can tell you where you were. A close photograph and a wider one give you two different things to keep: the detail that caught your attention and a little of the life around it.
That is a suggestion for building your own record, rather than a rule about how every photograph should look.
Look at what is close to home
The woods beside my home are somewhere I like to photograph nature. I look at the small details around me: berries, leaves and the way the light comes through them.
If you walk the same route often, try choosing one thing to pay attention to next time. What is growing beside the path? Where is the light falling? What has changed since your last visit?
You can photograph a familiar place without needing a new destination every time. The interest might be in something much smaller than the whole view.
I have a soft spot for those details. A handful of berries can be enough to make me stop and take a photograph.
Keep some context with the beautiful details
The photograph you love today may be the close-up of your cake. A few years later, you might also appreciate seeing the kitchen where you made it.
When you are already taking photographs, consider keeping one wider view too. Include the table, a corner of the room or the path where you found your subject. You can still make a beautiful photograph while letting it say something about the place.
If there is someone else in the frame, ask whether they are comfortable being photographed, particularly before sharing it. A photograph can belong in your private collection without needing an audience.
Give yourself something to find again
A small collection is easier to return to if you know where it is. You could make an album for everyday photographs and add the occasional note: where you walked, what you baked or why you wanted to keep that image.
I would keep the system simple enough that it does not become another project to finish. A date and a short caption can be plenty.
Your everyday photographs can be quite specific to you. Mine would naturally include food, coffee and the little things I notice in the woods.
Think about what you would like to recognise when you look back. Something you made. A place you kept returning to. A detail of the home you were living in.
Start with one of those things next time it catches your eye. You do not need to decide what your whole collection will become before taking the first photograph.
Written by Esther
Esther is a photographer and storyteller, and the founder of Essy's Essentials - a seasonal home for stories, rituals, recipes and everyday luxuries.
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