I’ve always been fascinated by how difficult I find it to photograph the trivialities of life today – the trivial scenes that will be different tomorrow and that would reveal themselves as being historically interesting were I to take the photo.

I know I want to take the photo(s). I take some but not enough. And I feel the palpable sense of regret for the ones I haven’t taken.

But it’s just so difficult to take a photo of a scene, or an object, today, that is ordinary, commonplace and, well, too familiar. We take so much for granted that foreseeing change and obsolescence is hard. Why bother taking a photo of that thing – it’s just not going to change.

Having managed to actually take a photo of a mundane scene today, who’s going to be interested in it? Is it in fact interesting at all. No, probably not. It won’t have any real value until sometime in the (fairly distant) future. Maybe when what’s in the photo becomes ‘dated’. Or doesn’t exist. Or we become nostalgic for that past moment in time.

However, when we get to see an image of something ordinary (familiar) from the past, we’re enthralled by it. We become consumed with memories of what we were doing then; that “we had one of those”; and what the significance of that period was to how we are now. And many more feelings and emotions besides.

We love the context and the associations. We feel connected.

History is these details. It’s what makes today interesting when we look back at it. The problem is that it takes a long time for the significance to materialise. Decades. More. And this compounds the challenges we have in actually taking these important photographs.

Look, it’s important.

Take photographs of the simplest, most intimate and personal of things around you. Today.