ANTON SOKOLOV | PRESENT SIMPLE
Every morning I get up at half past six. I wash and dress up, have breakfast and go to work. In an hour I usually get to the metro station where I drink coffee from a plastic cup at the pancake kiosk and smoke a cigarette. After that I go to the tram stop, catch a tram and get to the school where I work at minutes past eight.
The lessons start at eight thirty and last until quarter past two. At around twelve I have lunch at the canteen and smoke two more cigarettes. After the lessons I spent some time in school working with the registers, having dinner or gossiping with other teachers. At quarter to four I leave the school building and go home by two shuttle buses. There I have almost an hour of free time that I spend on the Internet or work with pictures – after that I start private lessons. Usually I finish the lessons and go home at eight thirty in the evening.
At home my wife and I watch TV or a downloaded movie or series. I read a bit or work with photos before I go to bed. At half past one I go to sleep.
Five hours later I get up, wash and dress up, have breakfast and go to work.
Sometimes I’m a little bit jealous with people whose life in speed and passion overdoes Michael Bay’s and David Lynch’s films. Of course, I couldn’t describe my life with a couple of words, but three words would be enough. My life is just like anyone else’s – without any special events, joys or troubles.
I started taking pictures in order to slice that never-ending Present Simple and mark some points that are important for me. I’m not sure whether I succeeded or not as the photographs became the part of infinite Present Simple instead of cutting it. At the beginning it seemed to me that the camera highlights something special in l’ecume des jours but at the end there were to many of those specialties. I realized that my experiment in overcoming the reality suffered a fiasco. These photographs should be viewed just like this – a report of a failed experiment written by an everyman.
© Courtesy Anton Sokolov