Seasonal Chores Are Great Photo Opportunities (Day 15 of 31)
Most of our family snapshots are taken at the high points: birthdays, holidays, picnics, vacations; our daily chores don’t typically make the cut. (How many shots do you have of someone in your family loading the dishwasher or cleaning the tub?) For just that reason, though, a few pictures taken during chore time are worthwhile to amass over the course of a lifetime.
But seasonal chores are a different matter altogether, for several reasons. First, you do them only a few times a year; because they’re rare, they can often feel more celebratory—or, at the very least, lacking in the grinding drudgery that can accompany, say, getting dinner on the table every night. Second, these occasional tasks are often outdoor activities that connect us with a coming or departing season. Third, they’re another way we inherit practical daily wisdom from our forebears and pass it along to the next generations. All these factors make our seasonal work an interesting subject for photos.
I’m thinking about things like preparing the garden for winter (or, in the spring, for planting); cleaning gutters; chopping firewood; burning brush in a bonfire; getting out or storing away a barbecue; putting up Christmas lights. Commemorating such tasks through photography reminds us that work often has elements that are pleasant, and that taking care of our homes and families is a huge and ongoing project. The necessary duty involved in this work is one more way we show our love—and that is always a worthwhile reason to take a photo.
(For the month of October 2017, I’m participating in the 31 Days bloggers’ challenge. You can find out about it here, and check out the interesting work other bloggers are posting.)