Inner Excavate-along: I begin

The only book I took to Italy last summer was Liz Lamoreux’s Inner Excavation: Exploring Your Self Through Photography, Poetry and Mixed Media, along with a journal.  I enjoyed sitting with the first two chapters and being taken in a few different directions with them, first writing some poetry, then making lists of favorite words, and really looking at the world around me.  It wasn’t nearly enough time and so when I read that Liz decided to work through her own book again and invited people to come along with her, I thought it’d be fun.

Liz is leading a couple hundred of her friends through seven weeks of inner excavation on Flickr, on her blog, and through subscribed posts.  I certainly don’t have time for this, so I’m getting ok with the fact that I can’t watch her videos, probably won’t post anything for others to read (besides here), and I won’t be completing nearly all the assignments.  Ok then.  Let’s begin!

Actually, Chapter 1 is titled “I Begin…” I decided to accept Liz’s invitation to really look at what you see in your world on an ordinary day and document scenes from this one day (Saturday, June 16) in photographs.  If life is truly in the details, then why not tell the story of a day?

I’ve always loved looking back at the little things from years ago… what shampoo I used to use or how the carpet looked where we used to live.  These old photos tell stories and bring to life all sorts of memories.  So why not create them purposefully? Today I am looking around me as if seeing the present from the future.

I just received my pre-ordered copy of Tracey Clark’s Elevate the Everyday: A Photographic Guide to Picturing Motherhood and I opened it right to this quotation:

“The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life and elevating them to an art.” ~ William Morris

How fitting.  Tracey writes about seeing your life for the magic that it is.  Well, here’s a little ordinary magic…