Taylor Samuels
Fishbowl
University of Vermont

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My Life at Home series, titled “Fishbowl”, began as my photography project last fall during my Introduction to Digital Photography course. It started by being a documentation of my roommate, Carly, going on dates, and I soon realized that I enjoyed capturing these intimate moments. When Carly ran out of people that she wanted to go on dates with, I simply began documenting my roommates and friends in a more intimate way, things that an outside viewer would not normally see of someone they are not close to: getting ready for a night out, celebrating the holidays, eating meals. I like the way it feels to look at these images, and the sense of closeness and familiarity it emits. 

After living with Carly and my other roommate, Kaitlyn, for 6 months, we have created more than a friendship, rather a sort of sisterhood. The bond between women is certainly special and I see this more and more as I get older and my friendships, old and new, continue to strengthen. I wanted to continue capturing these intimate moments, but this time in a new and evolved way. During the 3 weeks that I had this course, I was taking 5 classes at once and was doing school work from the moment I woke up until the moment I went to sleep. Because of this, I considered concepts based in our home since I did not have many opportunities to go out and dive into a project that involved travel to a further location or multiple locations. Another factor that I considered is how I am always taking photos and videos on my iPhone to document my life, but unless it is a silly selfie, I am not in the photos myself. I want to remember these moments, what I look like, how I feel, what I am doing, and how I interact with my environment and the others in it. After discovering all these aspects, I concluded that I will continue this series, while also inserting myself into the images using a tripod. 

This project means a lot to me. While more than half of the photos are posed, with the concepts previously decided, they are all representative of our little life together. Whether we are fighting, staying up late having deep talks on the terrace, cleaning, or getting glammed up just to take photos in the apartment, we are coinciding alongside each other. An important factor of this project is that we have been living through a global pandemic, not doing as much as we used to out in the world. This has made us evaluate our time inside, in efforts to make it as meaningful 

as our time outside. Kaitlyn, Carly, and I have done a pretty decent job of figuring things out while locked in a small apartment together for weeks at a time. I like to think that our relationship itself is what makes our time at home special, and worth capturing.