Photo Chronicles

Dinner. Saturday night. My friend whips out her cell phone. “This guy cut me off,” she says; “this one wouldn’t let me merge.”

She’s showing me a series of photos on her phone, of cars that have “pissed her off.” This is her new tactic for road rage management: don’t get mad, just whip out your phone and ready, aim – click. “It really freaks people out,” she tells me, grinning.

I’m reminded of the movie Smoke, in which Harvey Keitel’s character takes a snapshot, every morning, of the intersection outside his smoke shop. It struck me at the time, and has stayed with me ever since – what a way to mark the day, and all the days of a life.

So Sunday morning, after my husband had performed his weekly ritual of making a colossal bagel sandwich, and its Bloody Mary sidekick (filled with all kinds of fixins and spices – no simple mix-plus-vodka, no siree), I whipped out the camera, and plan to do the same for every Sunday to come.

The view from your front porch, the bus stop, the sink in your office kitchen… what can you chronicle in photos? And how does the act of capturing your environment in images change your relationship to it?

Tagged as: bagel_sandwich, food, photos