Through doing this activity I learnt that everyday I do seem to notice extremely similar things while I do my everyday routine of either getting to work or Uni. This involves noticing the time, or what clothes I will wear for the day and I only seem to notice the faces of people I know. Throughout the past 2 weeks, by reading John Mason and Daniel Shields readings, and throughout class discussions, as well as doing this activity, I have learnt that what I notice of my nonfiction surroundings, is extremely selective and this activity has taught me that it is actually quite hard to even think of something to notice that I unknowingly ignore everyday. Once I decided on something I would notice, eg. ceilings, with the help of Hannah, as I did over think this activity a bit too much, I originally thought it would be easy to remember to mark and record each time I came across a ceiling. However what I have learnt and what is also mentioned in John Masons’ reading, is to try to subconsciously notice a feature that does not have an effect or influence on my actions is hard to do. For example in the morning I did remember the exercise when I was in my home and did take videos of multiple ceilings, however during the day I went to Chadstone Shopping Centre and I completely forgot to record ceilings the whole time I was there until the last minute when I remembered.

My videos definitely capture what I set out to notice, as I did film 10 second videos of ceilings that I came across throughout my day. However if I had decided to film ceilings on a day when I had Uni on, that would make for a more interesting set of videos. I did notice the majority of my videos, although they were different ceilings in different houses, they do look very similar. Of course they were also different ceilings included also, and it is interesting to review recordings because there are elements to some ceilings I wouldn’t have seen or noticed otherwise if I didn’t film it. Looking back at the compilation of videos, the different sounds and lighting whether it be natural or high key does make for an interesting video. As prior to doing this exercise, I would not have noticed now different environments even if they are similar such as two houses can still be so different not just visually, but in an audio sense as well.

A couple of questions which have evolved for me about noticing and nonfiction throughout doing this work, is why is it such a struggle to try to record and remember something to notice that one usually ignores. And another question is does the brain naturally highly select what the brain draws attention, and does not draw attention to, in terms of nonfiction,  or have we as human beings overtime become more ignorant to viewing only aspects of our nonfiction?