After our first week of class I realised that I’d always been looking at my neighbourhood as a whole, I look at the entire street instead of individual houses and that kind of thing. I walked down my street on a bright and sunny morning and stopped in front of every household, i creepily looked into their front yards and really looked at the shape and colour of the front of the house. I looked at the cars, the animals, and i feel a little more in love. Everything was so happy and colourful, it was so quiet that all I could hear were chirping birds, meowing cats, barking dogs and p

eoples happy conversations when they walked past me. I expressed in week 1 how i feel attached to nature, from growing up in the country, spending my childhood on farms and all my holidays camping, I also said that to me Brunswick felt like home because there was so much green on my street.

I love the old styles of housing that are also mixed with new styles, each house unique in it’s own way. When I went to take photos of each house I tried to keep a steady theme with my capturing style, I wanted each photo to be shot in the same way so the viewer could really obviously see the difference in each property, however I couldn’t continue this method because there was too much character that I wanted to capture, including a lovely but sad note taped to a tree. It may seem random amongst the other images but I wanted to include it to help show the type of neighborhood mine is. A beautiful ginger cat with only 3 legs passed away recently, I’m not sure that everyone knew whose cat it was, but they always saw him. He was so friendly and cute that I often saw him being loved, petted, fed and brushed by many different people. Personally I did the same, and it may seem strange but somehow this cat made me feel like I belonged here, because I loved him just like everyone else. I called him Greg, only to find out months later that his real name was Pusscar. He passed away and a loving neighbour stuck a note to a pole about him. Such a sweet thing to do.

Each house when looked at closely was so incredibly different, and I realised just how much I appreciated that. Where I live is actually a flat/apartment building and it upset me because I wanted my own house to plant a garden in front of and build a fence and make a jazzy little mailbox so I can add to the friendly feel that I get looking at others front yards. I wish to come home to a place that happy and welcoming, that colourful and fresh.

I wonder why people put effort into the front of their houses, is it because they want to be proud of their home? Is it to feel like they’re a part of the neighborhood? Is it because they want to come home to something that looks nice? I think the answer to my questions would differ depending on the kind of person the answerer was.

My feedback in class was a question from Kim, if i were to make a short film based on these photos what would I do. I said that I’d go and knock on the doors and maybe try to understand and get to know the people that live in these houses that I’ve judged based on their front yard.