Instagramming about home

A few days ago my friend Heather challenged me on Instagram. The social photo network has recently become my home for image creativity. I still publish my photos on Flickr, but Instagram is more fun, with a better community and wider reach amongst my friends. It's where my pictures have an audience.

So what's an Instagram challenge? Well, after shooting, editing, filtering and sharing the first few hundred photos, Instagram can become a little same-y. So apart from taking Instawalks (more on that next week), Instagrammers challenge each other to shoot photos on a certain theme. Heather's theme for me, quite innocently chosen, was 'at home'. She tells me she imagined that I would photograph pretty still lives around the house. Maybe a view from the terrace (it's a great view). Little did she know that her theme would throw me into full-on retrospective mode. Here are the results, with my comments, as the photos are more symbolic than pretty:

Shot one of my latest #5shotchallenge with the theme of #athome. This is my writing setup at my favourite cafe. It's as much my home as anyplace ever is.

I do spend my most productive days in cafes. Despite a good desk, a comfy sofa, and few distractions, the place where is sleep and eat is not the most conducive for writing. Since my work is who I am, where I work must be where I belong, right?

Shot two of my @5shotchallenge on a theme of #athome. Packing to move house is my way of cutting down on the clutter. Time to travel again, to make another place my home.

We move house multiple times a year. Some years we have a steady base, but others we seem to be constantly on the move. Packing suitcases, choosing what to take and what to put into storage is becoming ever easier. Right now we are just changing accommodation for our last month is Johannesburg, so the process is pretty painless. Still, I have trouble thinking of this place, or the last one, or the one before that, as home. The few possessions I cart around, the data on my laptop and the few cherished items of jewellery, the odd knock-knack and the essential camera gear - those embody home more than the actual location they are stored in.

Shot three in my #5shotchallenge on a theme of #athome - every morning, wherever I am, as if by magic, a cup of tea appears by my bedside. #stuartrules

And here is the real deal. The routine, the daily habits, the things we do together, those are the moments where I feel I belong. Wherever I am, I have learnt, my habits don't change. I used to imagine that if I were just in this other, better, place, then I could be a better person. I have realised that location is largely irrelevant. Who I'm with, what I do, not where I am, is what matters.

Shot four of my @5shotchallenge on the theme of #athome - this is not my home literally, but since we are Easter egg hunting together, and eating, laughing, chilling together, my friends are where I belong today.

Who I'm with, indeed. Just last weekend, leaning back in my chair during an Easter brunch with friends, I had a moment of utter contentment at spending time hanging out with some nice people. I have friends all over the place, which makes it sometimes hard to keep up. So being able to be in the same place with a few of them is a pleasure. Virtual connections help, like Facebook, email, Skype. Nothing beats a communal Easter egg hunt, though.

Last shot in my @5shotchallenge on a theme of #athome - I've been trying to think of the least cheesy way to say this, but there is really no way to avoid this: I am his home and he is mine.

'Home is where the heart is', they say. I have nothing to add.