I’d like to take you on a photoadventure around my street, where much of my family also lives. Across from our house are some close family friends, next to our house is my aunt, uncle, and five cousins, past them are my grandparents, and the last house is my aunt, uncle, and their three kids. All of the houses in the neighborhood are painted with bright, cheerful, colors. Many of the houses have colorful gardens.

My neighborhood is not on the main road, so there are few cars that pass through it. In front of my grandparents’ cozy house, there is a small, sandy, beach and a sparkling pond. On the day of my photoadventure, it is dreary and gray, but the flowers at my grandmother’s house, just starting to bloom, make everything brighter. 

In the back of my house, there is a small, barnlike structure that is home to many chickens. During the warmer months we have goats, but not now. Around the other houses, there are many different things for my cousins and me to do. There are two cheery play structures, a trampoline, and a batting cage. During the summer, we splash around in the pond and have parties on the beach. We have a dock with a high platform to dive from out on the pond that we swim or paddleboard out to so we can play games or jump from. In the center of the neighborhood, there is a section of grass that has a small blue playhouse for the younger kids, and homemade swings that my grandfather constructed by hand when I was young. Near the playhouse is a vegetable garden that in the autumn is full of corn, pumpkins, tomatoes, and sunflowers. 

Our exchange student, Gloria, enjoying the swings

Walking around my neighborhood on a typical day, you will see young kids toddling around, parents chatting around a fire pit or front deck, and older kids playing sports or bouncing on the trampoline. The sound of crickets and spring peepers fill the cool, spring air at night, surrounding the houses with their peaceful drone. Every morning, roosters crow with the rise of the sun, urging us to wake up and begin our day. Our cats and dogs wander the neighborhood freely, looking for someone to play with them.

By taking a photowalk, I learned that any day can be a beautiful day if you spend your time looking for the good things instead of focusing on the bad things. I thought that I wouldn’t find anything nice to photograph on such a dreary day, but I found so many beautiful things that I did not expect. Searching for the little details that can turn any bad day into a good one. The photoadventure also taught me to recognize the beautiful things around me in my everyday setting to an extent much larger than I normally do. I will never truly look at a boring day in my neighborhood the same way, because I now know that the beauty is always there…I just need to look for it.

Alice Toussaint Pittman is a member of the Youth Travel Blogging Mentorship Program.

All photos courtesy and copyright Alice Toussaint Pittman