I recently started reading the Art of Noticing and it's rekindled my drive to write about small walks. This is a lovely book (and newsletter) of creative prompts to get you out and noticing new things in your surroundings. Very much the same idea behind Small Walks.
I started writing Small Walks to kick myself in the butt to get outside the house, grab a camera, slow down, and observe my neighborhood. Art of Noticing has a similar goal so for this reboot I’m borrowing a prompt from the book: Document the (seemingly) identical.
This prompt spoke to me in a particular way because of this passage.
“My friend Dave Walker has a similar pastime. He takes pictures of telephone poles around New Orleans. Close-ups - details, really. Sometimes the image shows the texture of a pole, but sometimes a pole is riddled with staples or touched by an odd dab of paint” - Rob Walker, Art of Noticing
This stood out because I too have an obsession with taking pictures of light poles in the city. Each has its own patina of random graffiti, stickers, dents, chips, paint, etc. On any given block in the city you’ll find a series of poles each adorn with a completely different collection of details.
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