How my day looks in the form of shadows — a contest entry

Days have been so routinary for me. If a year ago, I'd say that days were full of ups and downs with so much activities/tasks to do in a day. I'd say 24 hours are not enough to do the things I have to do. I'd say I go to my work from 9AM to 10PM, attending some classes in between work hours, studying the lessons I didn't fully understand when I get home, and always sleeping past midnight. That's still routinary but there were times I'd get pulled out and do some things like accomplishing a very urgent task or attending a meeting with our collaborators. Do I miss those days? No. Those days were really unhealthy if I would have to evaluate the way I lived back then.

A lot of things have changed in the past year, a change that forced all of us to pause. Some people are now getting back to the normal times, some are now living the normal times, but we're still coping and struggling. So for me, my days have been so simple. Aside from doing work from home, I make it a goal to just breathe and take in what I get for the day.

I never thought that running errands can be so eventful. Before, I'd regard doing grocery shopping, going to the bank, etc. as some things I'd do when my time permits. But now, I always make sure I have a stock of food (just in case quarantine measures become strict again). The streets I pass by have become different too, people are now using bicycles as mode of transportation since public vehicles have become less accessible. I would like to go to my work using a bicycle too but I'm a little scared of going along with cars and trucks on the road. I'm glad that I live near my workplace so it's just easy for me to walk my way there.

It's been months since I finished my graduate studies, but since I work in a research laboratory, I still have to deal with a lot of research tasks in working on our projects. I still have to read journals and learn new things, now on my own. For the first time, after 20 years, I am not attending classes. That's what I thought, however, I want to maximize this gap year. When I have the time (well, I make time for it to be honest) I go through some online materials and learn things I had no time for before. I have enrolled in different online courses, I usually do this during the night.

I have always been curious of so many things. When I was looking at my old travel photos, I saw this photo I took when we went to a science museum. That's my shadow, how come it's in different colors? I no longer remember the details of this exhibit.

What exhibit was is about or what the room looked like. But then, I remembered how the interaction of light and matter can produce so many wonderful phenomena. I know a lot of people who study these things, I've read a book that's solely center on this topic and found it very interesting. So yeah, shadows have colors, you can even do an experiment on this at home. Isn't light so wonderful? I didn't have a proper course about optics and I have missed the opportunity of learning about light for so long but it's not yet too late to start. So like I said, I'm back again to studying and learning different things. I'm studying during the night after I finish my tasks at work. Sometimes, I do it the way I'd enjoy like lighting a scented candle on the side.

I thought this would just make me sleepy but I enjoy the ambience of my barely lit workstation. Somehow it gives a feeling of being relaxed and having slow times, like I can have more time to go through my readings.

I rarely do this now, but when I'm able to wake up really early in the morning, I run. I usually have my afternoon run but it hits different when I start my day with a morning run. When it's very early, I even get to see the morning mist. I'm thankful that we have this paved road along the farm, it's much easier to run and I get to see a beautiful morning on the stretch of green fields. Whenever I go for a run in the morning, my day starts early too. I am able to do a lot of work and household chores. It's a way to boost my day when I want to accomplish a lot of things. I hope get to do this for a long time.

I love taking photos of the mundane and of things I get to see when I travel. But I have always avoided taking photos with shadows, I didn't like my photos to have a huge part without color pigments. When I tried to document my day and intentionally capture shadows, I realized that avoiding it was much easier. Capturing shadows turns out to be a difficult task to do, nevertheless, it gave me a different kind of satisfaction to see my day through the different forms of shadows. I'm glad that this community boost contest hosted by OCD gave me this opportunity to explore shadows as my subject in doing photography. If you want to join in, you can access the details of the contest through this link. Hope you have fun too! 🌞