Recently I took out The Book of Awesome from the library. It had me chuckling to myself many times when I read it on the subway. That in itself is pretty awesome.

And so like many people who’ve read the book or the blog of 1000 Awesome Things, I’ve started to mentally document everyday awesome things.

Like, freshly opened ice cream! When its surface is all smooth and creamy. I know that the ice cream will be soft and easy to scoop out and fresh tasting. And it’s so short-lived. After a week of opening, ice crystals will start to form and the ice cream will be all hard and even gooey in spots.

But for now, we’ll savour the moment. And snap a photo.

I’m known to be the one who takes photos. Sometimes I get comments like, oh here’s Trish with her camera again.

I admire people who can just live the moment and savour the experience and the memory of that is satisfying enough. I, on the other hand, feel compelled to take a picture when I see something new or interesting (and new or interesting to me could mean a patch of light on the wall as the sun sets, or the shadow of my house plant with a strange shape that I’ve never noticed before). Whatever it is, I feel the need to capture and convey the essence of what I see and experience.

I’m by no means a photographer. I was never trained in photography (high school photography class doesn’t really count; plus, I didn’t do so well in it), and I only know how to use a point and shoot. But it’s still exciting.

Today I was reading this interview with Moby who is going to release a photography book with his new CD. Something he said really resonated with me. Made me feel like I’m not the only one who feels this way, like I’m not crazy (or maybe Moby is crazy, so then I’m not the only crazy one. I can live with that).

My uncle when I was growing up and some of my other friends who are documentary filmmakers instilled in me this idea that whatever environment you live in it’s probably worth documenting even if you don’t see that, like things that seem normal to you in your environment to someone else can seem very interesting and strange and so I wanted to document that strangeness…

… music and visual art for me is all the product on one hand of living in this strange and beautiful world and on the other hand trying to represent the strangeness and the beauty and the world just keeps getting stranger and more beautiful. I feel compelled to make art that on one hand reflects and sometimes almost create like a sense of comfort when confronted with the strangeness of the world.

That’s the most awesome thing I’ve read this week, and it’s only Tuesday! Imagine how many more awesome things we’re going to encounter for the remaining 5 days of the week!

Take care, friends :D