Eyoeal Kefyalew I The Ordinary
East African Photography Award
Honorable Mention
It’s the house that you think is home, the alleyway you’ve passed a thousand times, the door that still looks the same, the bathroom mirror that still looks back at you, the bed you’ve outgrown but one in which you relearned to sleep in a fetal position in so that the monsters below don’t catch your feet. The longer I’ve stayed away from my parent’s house, the stronger these feelings grow.
I wonder how distant I have to be to understand and make the familiar matter, to see the ordinary, to see me. I wonder how close I have to be to feel, how long I have to stay till it matters and how long I have to repeat it till it stays. It’s always hard to photograph something you’ve looked at daily, to see it in a new light, to see the textures and remember the details.
I have the same approach with street photos; the streets are an extension of what I call home. Sometimes I’m close enough to feel it and other times I’m far enough to see, to see the familiar, the ordinary, the everyday, to find the mirror that looks back at me.