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.

Photography During the Covid Years and Beyond

A post-pandemic update from Annie Tong.

While many of the photographs in these project galleries are from previous travels to countries such as India, Central America and Mexico, the majority of them were taken during the first two years of the Coronavirus Pandemic. In the beginning of 2020 I set out with a rather loose but lengthy two-year plan to photograph for The Everyday of Life project while travelling the world. The trip began in Bangladesh where I was able to travel and photograph throughout the country for almost two months until the pandemic officially arrived in the country late in March. It may have begun earlier in other countries, but it wasn’t until later that it was accepted into the hearts and minds of the people of Bangladesh as their new, inescapable reality. My partner and I chose to stay in the country, rented an apartment in Dhaka city, and lived through the chaos and lockdowns in a small neighbourhood community well into the month of September.

The decision whether to stay in Bangladesh or return home was not an easy one. We believed it would be safer at home in Canada, but we also believed we could stay safe and be respectful of everyone here if we chose not to return. At the time, like many, we expected that, at worst, the pandemic would last into the summer. I don’t know if we would have made different choices had we known it would still be creating havoc around the world for well into the following year, but I feel fortunate that we chose to stay.

We gave up the idea of travelling the world in exchange for just living in it with everybody else. Beautiful scenic bus rides were replaced with quiet neighbourhood living; dinner invitations to family homes were exchanged for socially-distanced sidewalk conversations; and a wide-open world of adventure and opportunities gave way to a quiet life in unfamiliar places. My photography, however, continued, and though the photographs from these two years may not reveal the everyday of life I thought I would find, it was and is an everyday of life we all learned to live with.

As I write this update is now, from back home in Toronto and as the summer of 2022 approaches, the pandemic feels like it’s something behind us, sort of. The project is living more in Lightroom than in the street, and though I am seeking out ways to display and share my photographs, the project feels far from complete and I already planning the next instalment in a part of the world yet undisclosed to me. I realize that the everyday of life is also here at home, but like most things, the familiarity of it makes it harder to see.

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