What we are familiar with, we cease to see.

I absolutely love the writer Anais Nin and the other day I came across one of her quotes in which she says: What we are familiar with we cease to see. It really hit me, it resonated so much truth. I have often heard people say, when for example I have said they live in a beautiful area/home etc, and they reply, 'you get used to it'. I suppose to a point you do.

Anyway, it made me question myself. And surprisingly I thought 'no, I don't cease to see'. My reason for this is obvious I suppose, it is photography and in particular the kind of work I am doing. Each picture, perhaps because it is large format photography, is considered. When I am working I am with my family. I watch them constantly, I wait to see what they will do that makes me want to capture that moment or to recreate that moment. In that way everything that should be familiar to me, such as watching them laying, or playing feels like a unique experience. It could be what they say, what they do, their body language .. it could be that I have noticed they have grown, grown up.

Not only do I spend most of my time with my family, I have also spent a lot of time looking at my work. I look at ways of presenting it, showing it to the world or just looking at them in my family box of photographs. I remember every picture taken. I remember where and when and sometimes I hear the conversations that take place before, during and after.

I am also in the process of making a new hand made book for the 'September is the Cruellest Month' series. So again, I am looking and feeling this work. I am also writing the notes I made alongside each individual photo .. telling the story behind the image.

This week makes me more contemplative than most weeks. Three years ago this week I lost my very dear friend to breast cancer. She was a very optimistic woman who loved life and living with cancer for 14 years made her see life so vividly .. she could see beauty in the most mundane. She was as a great inspiration to me in how I view the world and so is photography. I am so grateful for all of this.