We need a counterweight to the newsworthy images that bombard us daily, always presenting the lives of others from within the context of global tragedies and extraordinary events. Though it is important to bear witness to these hardships, and to do what we can to make life better for everyone, it is equally as important to look beyond them, and to appreciate the beauty of life everywhere it lives.

The Everyday of Life is a project by the Canadian photographer, Annie Tong. The photographs are mostly from developing and emerging nations and have been taken since 2014. She will be the first to tell you that the photographs are and long to be both uneventful and familiar, and they strive to celebrate people at ease in their lives even though their lives may not be easy.

Living in and Learning from Communities

Annie Tong’s process begins with an eagerness to explore the world around her. Behind each photograph are days and often weeks in the neighbourhoods she discovers, getting to know the people who live there and letting them get to know her. Her photographs are never staged, and nothing about the circumstance is in any way extraordinary or newsworthy. Each photograph simply offers us a chance to see others at ease in the comfort of their ordinary, everyday lives. The goal of the project and exhibition is to help reveal this fragile thread that reaches through our differences and connects us all.

If you are following my Instagram account @theeverydayoflife, you will know that I continue to post photos two or three times a week. These photographs are all from recent years of travel, and I am enjoying discovering them anew as I explore my archives, and I will post any gems into these website galleries. Enjoy.

Keep well everyone.
Annie