Out of all the significant places in my life, why do I still choose to feature my own home? It may come off as a boring, cliche, and lazy choice but my home has grown in significance to me especially during this new transition period in my life. Don’t get me wrong, I love my hall in NTU very much. It is clean, conducive, cosy and convenient, but nothing can come close to being back at home. It is even more ironic that I feel this way because I used to fantasise about having my own place to live in, where I can do things my way and truly have my own personal space. Being away from home has proved that my home is the place where my heart belongs. It is filled with everything that is familiar to me – the sights, smells and sounds. What I miss most is the presence of my family members even though we may not see eye-to-eye all the time.

To sidetrack a little, other reasons why I love my home is because of its location. It is in close proximity to amenities such as the supermarket, wet market, hawker center, supper spots, National Library, polyclinic, post-office, etc. As I live within walking distance to the MRT station, I get to save money on bus fares and I get to exercise too! The most convenient part of it would be its fringe location of the CBD and town area, making it easy to access these places. I cannot think of a better place to live in!

Now back to my photography series, I decided to title it ‘For Granted‘. The series features subjects that I had often overlooked. Yet it is these objects that give my home so much character and they tell of the stories that lie within my household. The photos have a slightly warm tinge to them to give them a timeless and nostalgic feel.

Let’s begin with the first photo, ‘Left Forgotten‘. It features an incense burner and some cleaning tools piled on top of it carelessly. God knows how long these items have been sitting that lonely stairway corner. To be honest, I had not paid much attention to them until this assignment came along.

Up next, ‘Tell-tale Signs‘ features the footwear that my family members most often wear. As you can see, the footwear left outside our house are mainly slippers, or what I like to call footwear-that-you-don’t-mind-getting-stolen/footwear-that-people-most-likely-would-not-bother-stealing. We had left shoes outside before and they were stolen by petty thieves. Hence, we had learned our lesson and placed them inside instead. These footwear are the first things that I notice whenever I return home. They are pretty accurate tell-tale signs of who’s home and who’s not, or whether we have visitors or not.

‘The Hot Spot‘ is a name that belongs to an old and spoiled massage chair that still sits in the living room of my home. It gets this peculiar name because it is my dad’s favourite lounging spot. He would sit on it for so long that the seat would become hot. Since this massage chair is not working anymore, it merely serves as a fancier seat than the sofa. This is the spot where my dad would read his newspapers, watch TV and snack.

I personally believe that fridge magnets reflect a lot about the personality of the household, hence the title ‘Looking Glass‘. Some households have a tradition of buying magnets from the places that they had travelled to as a mementos, other households like to use magnets as a means to hold up their family photos or reminders. As for my household, we have a collection of random magnets haphazardly put together. As the magnets do not have any particular significance to us, the fridge is merely a location to house them all because we feel bad to simply throw them out!

And finally, ‘The Lone Ranger‘. Do not be misled by the pair of pants hanging from the laundry pole. The Lone Ranger does not refer to the pair of pants, but the laundry pole instead. My family does not have the habit of hanging clothes outside as we often are not home to bring the clothes in when it rains, hence we often hang the clothes indoors instead. This explains why we only have one laundry pole situated outside. While The Lone Ranger hardly has clothes to hang, it serves as a perch for birds that would often visit during the morning and the evening. Hopefully these birds will not decide to answer the nature’s call while they are perched there…