When we’re young, we chase milestones. Later, we realise life is mostly made up of ordinary Tuesdays.
It’s Sunday afternoon here in Brisbane. The sun is warm, the coffee is good, and I’m sitting on our deck overlooking the small park beside our home. Nothing remarkable is happening.
Our neighborhood is relatively quiet. As I sip on a coffee, I am quietly observing what is happening around me.
Another day of nothing remarkable.
An elderly man is walking his dog.
A child is laughing while their parents are push them on the swing.
A young couple are strolling by together.
More moments pass and someone rides past on their bicycle.
A thought quietly enters my mind.
There was a time when I would have dismissed this as an uneventful day. Now it feels quietly complete.
When did ordinary days become the ones I value most?
When We Measure Life by Milestones
In my much younger days, I had no time to sit idle and watch the world go by. There was always too much to do.
I thought that happiness was tied to achievement, so this was my focus.
I spent hours in front of the textbooks as I studied hard to finish school.
Once I had found work, I was packing up and leaving my country town to head for the big city where all the action was.
I continued with advanced studies at night while chasing promotions and the resulting pay increases through the day.
Overtime wasn’t a sacrifice; it was an investment in the next promotion.
Marriage became another milestone. Then came the mortgage, another target to reach.
The occasional overseas trip and business travel within Australia made my life a little more interesting.
It didn’t take long for the space between achievements to barely register. And when they did register, it was with a sense of flatness seeking another adrenaline boost.
Ordinary days become something to get through. The exhilaration lay in the next milestone, the next achievement.
A strange thing happened. With each milestone achieved, the exhilaration lessened. This was hard to adjust to.
The Quiet Majority of Life
Now as I look back over my life I can see that it mostly has not been dramatic. My major achievements were scattered over 45 years with most of them in the first two-thirds of those years.
As the gaps between my achievements seemed to lengthen, I was forced to confront an inconvenient truth – my life was mostly made up of ordinary moments.
You know the ordinary moments I mean:
- Monday mornings
- grocery shopping
- conversations over dinner
- driving familiar roads
- watering the garden
- mowing the lawn
- putting out the rubbish bins
- reading before bed
- paying the bills
None of these moments ever become headlines. Yet together they become the texture of a life.
I have come to realise that the quality of our lives depends more on ordinary days than extraordinary ones.
I have found that constantly chasing milestones can take a toll on both my health and my family life. So quality of living has become very important to me.
My ordinary days protect me and give me perspective. And there is nothing ordinary about having good health and good relationships.
Photography Changed What I Notice
Photography has had a profound impact on my life. I have come to see it as one of my greatest pleasures and an important source of mental wellbeing.
My camera taught me to slow down. I had to take my time, compose the shot and be in the moment when I pressed the shutter button.
In the days of film, I couldn’t afford to waste a shot so I would look for the best angle, and each time I captured an image it was a considered choice.
I’m glad I didn’t start learning photography in the days of digital otherwise I might have missed the valuable lessons film cameras provided.
Learning to slow down to see the light, observe what the weather was doing, helped me to predict what may come next to provide a better capture. As I developed my ability to see, my photography and my life improved.
Like many photographers, I spent years chasing spectacular sunsets and famous locations before discovering what truly held my attention.
I stopped chasing spectacular sunsets or famous landmarks, and I found myself noticing:
- soft light through a window
- an empty country road
- an old fence
- quiet reflections
- weathered buildings
- rock textures
- familiar places seen differently
My photography became less about collecting images and more about paying attention.
Through photography, I learned the ordinary was never ordinary.
I simply hadn’t been looking carefully enough.
Age Brings a Different Kind of Wealth
I think that as I get older, I am becoming more appreciative of being human in the everyday moments. Perhaps it’s wisdom. Perhaps it’s simply age. Whatever it is, it has changed the way I see the world.
Certainly, now I have retired I have more time for photography. But that doesn’t mean I am taking more photos. It means I am doing more noticing, I look for what speaks to me rather than photographing everything I see.
I am looking for more meaning in what I take photographs of. And a desire to take photographs for me – not to satisfy a judge, not to win a competition, but the quiet satisfaction of knowing this image means something to me.
I think this change in me is because age brings:
- fewer and smaller ambitions to impress
- less urgency to prove myself
- greater appreciation of enough
- gratitude for routine
- joy in repetition
I can recall a question I used to ask my nieces when I was talking to them, “What exciting thing happened today?” And this reflected my mindset at the time.
Now I find I have a better question to ask of myself and others. “What did I notice today?”
This subtle shift has changed everything for me.
The Photographs I Treasure Most
When I think of the images that matter most to me now, they usually aren’t my award winners.
They are the photos I have captured of quiet beaches at various times of the day and in different times of the year. We often visit Snapper Rocks and each visit is different.
I never tire of returning because every visit reveals something I hadn’t noticed before.
Other locations we regularly visit are of the same quality when I look for it. Each visit has something different that makes it a lasting memory. I am never bored by them as I am looking for what is different or what has changed.
Simple landscapes appeal as they have a sense of being at ease with nothing to prove. Just like a familiar street where it has a feeling of belonging.
These photographs carry emotional weight because they preserve ordinary moments that can never be repeated.
Their value grows over time.
Why Ordinary Days Become Extraordinary
Perhaps ordinary days become precious because we finally understand they are finite.
I reflect on my younger self and I considered the impact of change to be associated with moving on to the next goal or achievement. That may once have been true, but now change means something entirely different.
The routine of going to work disappears with retirement. Other routines associated with working life also change. This requires a different way of seeing to deal with the change.
The road I have driven on many times is suddenly closed and a detour is in place. Or suddenly there is a set of traffic lights where previously there weren’t any.
A café I frequent often closes. It leaves a gap in my life which I wouldn’t have noticed in my youth.
I look at the photo of our wedding party and notice how many are no longer with us. I talk to my 99-year-old father-in-law and he tells me he has outlived all his friends.
All this helps me to understand my days are finite.
And now what once seemed insignificant reveals itself as the life I was actually living.
Closing Reflection
My coffee cup is now empty, and the light is starting to fade. I am still sitting here enjoying my surroundings and am in no hurry to do something else.
The occasional person goes past walking their dog or going home from a day out.
The playground swings have grown silent as parents have taken their children home.
The trees are gently swaying in the light breeze.
Nothing dramatic happened today.
Yet it was a good day.
It was enough.
Perhaps the best days rarely announce themselves.
They arrive quietly.
Often, it’s in these days that I capture an image that’s filled with meaning for me. I can look back on it and remember that I don’t need drama to capture meaning or emotion. I just need attention.
Years from now, when I look back through my photographs, I suspect this ordinary Sunday will be there among them. Not because anything extraordinary happened, but because it quietly reminds me of the life I was fortunate enough to be living while I was busy looking for something else.
Originally published in Full Frame, The Art of Photography