Watch This Episode of MwahTV About Life in Lockdown Photography
On this episode of Mwah TV, I’m sharing a #Creative Contagion update with more life in lockdown photography.
I’ve asked a couple more of my photographer pals to capture some life in lockdown photography so that you can see how each of us has continued creating.
Here is our life in lockdown photography!
Can You Remember The Last Creative Contagion Crew?
We had George, Sue, and Phil capture the essence of how we felt around the world about the beginning of the Lockdown.
If you haven’t seen this episode, you can access the replay here.
Meet This Creative Contagion Crew
This time I've enlisted the creative stylings of Kerry and Catherine.
Meet Kerry Jordan!
Meet Catherine Turner (nee Berry)!
And You Know Me Right?
How To Support Each of these Creative Businesses
George would love your support. He asks that you take advantage of the offers he has right now on his photography-inspired clothing right here.
Sue would love your support. She asks that you take a look at her Food photoshoot opportunity offer.
Phil would love your support. He invites you to take a look at his gorgeous collection of landscapes. You can buy prints of your favourites here.
Kerry asks that you take a look at how she works for dog owners and dog-themed brands. You can find out more right here.
Catherine would like you to come and say hello and see more of her work over on Instagram here.
The Life In Lockdown Photography Themes This Time
Let's get into the themes for this round of the #CreativeContagion!
Social Distancing
We’ve all been living under the rules of keeping our distance from people outside of our households to 2 metres. Whilst we’ve just started seeing political discussions about reducing this, it certainly makes for an interesting brief photographically.
See what we created…
Listen To Kerry's Creative Process Behind This Shot
Read Kerry's Creative Process Behind This Shot
KERRY: Obviously with social distancing in place, I couldn't photograph the private clients, even if we were photographing outdoors and I could stay at a reasonable distance. And so I had to think of something else so that I could at least bring in some kind of income.
I started offering lockdown mini shoots for dog brands who could safely send their products to me, as well as a few brands who actually wanted full package shoots. It meant that I could keep on working, even if it was a fraction of what I was doing before. It did feel strange at first as I didn't have the client with me, but at the same time, I actually felt less pressure. I really found a creative flow when I was working by myself. And a couple of times I came up with setups and ideas that I may not have thought of if I was constantly referring back to the client and breaking that flow.
What I did miss though, was the mutual enthusiasm and excitement. When everything comes together to create the images that the client loves. Instead, what I had, was WhatsApp smiley, happy face emojis.
Listen To Catherine's Creative Process Behind This Shot
Read Catherine's Creative Process Behind This Shot
CATHERINE: So this is social distancing. I've also named it the field 'cause I'm so creative like that and language isn't my life, photos are my life, I much prefer working with photography than I do with language.
Anyway, as you can see, it's just a capture of lots and lots of different exposures again. And I think if I could have done this again, I would have probably put some more fun, more of myself to the edges, but to the sides of the image, but there's something quite nice about it all being grouped together because this was a walk that I did like quite a lot of times near the beginning of lockdown.
I, in fact, got kind of bored of going to the same field and walking around the same field. But yeah, this sort of partly depicts the monotony, but also the sort of comedy of the fact that well I'm walking around the same field probably wore the same outfit, not every day consecutively, but wore the same outfit, quite a lot of times to go around that field. It was quite a joy to create this one because I had to go out on my own and set the camera up, I had to use different focal points to make sure that I can capture myself. And I had a lot of people watching me, as I was doing it and thinking, what is that nut doing? But anyway, I enjoyed myself doing this and this is it. This is my social distancing.
Listen To My Creative Process Behind This Shot
Read My Creative Process Behind This Shot
LAURA: I've had some of the nicest chats waiting in social distancing cues like these, over the last few months. While it is commonplace for Geordies to strike up a conversation, we are indeed the friendliest of people with strangers.
It has been a delightful heartwarming aspect that I could never have predicted. In this particular precinct, there is a new one-way system has been imposed.
It reminds me of being in school again.
Creative Direction In Your Business
As well as a welcome creative distraction in this time of uncertainty and a LOT of anxiety, this is now a great example of my Creative Direction skills. Facilitating and curating this creative venture can be something you emulate or get support with in your business so that you stand out as the one to watch, who does it a bit differently than the rest.
I can help with that.
The New Normal
A new term we’ve heard over and over since the intense change we all went through began to settle into our day-to-day consciousness. The feelings of what is and isn’t normal can be dramatically changed after all.
See what we created…
The New Normal - By Kerry
Listen To Kerry's Creative Process Behind This Shot
Read Kerry's Creative Process Behind This Shot
With the restrictions now being eased, I'm starting to book private clients again, but it's just not feeling the same. I'm quite a tactile person, and my shoots usually end with a really big hug.
It's gonna feel really strange to just wave at a distance and have this invisible threat hanging over our heads. This isn't really great for nice relationships. However, being on lockdown has really made me appreciate some of the walks on my doorstep, and I've definitely seen an increase in the number of people on my local walks. And they're usually very quiet, so I guess people are really appreciating nature as well too.
But more than just appreciating nature, I appreciated the solitude, the quiet time to think and something that as an entrepreneur you don't often get to do because it feels like a luxury.
It is most definitely something that I now realise is so important to have that alone time and that it's not a luxury, it's actually a necessity.
The New Normal - By Catherine
Listen To Catherine's Creative Process Behind This Shot
Read Catherine's Creative Process Behind This Shot
This is the new normal also known as the living room. Very creative again. As you can see the least opaque layer is me sitting on my laptop, talking with friends, communicating with business owners, and generally sharing tips and tricks together and helping us to support each other's business as best we can, especially as most people, not even, not just photographers, but a lot of people have been really adversely affected by COVID-19 and not being able to go out to work as normal.
So yeah, mostly the time that's indoors has been pretty dull, so dull stuff like cleaning, reading, a little bit, lots of watching television. And as you can see three layers, I then merged three layers together so that you can see a little bit of each in the television because that kind of, the whole telly being on most of the time, does happen in our house.
And then there's me looking out the window that kind of like, oh, this clip, like, she's just, left her car, that lady once in a week. Excitement, hey, yeah, this is it, new normal at the moment. Hopefully not too much longer, hopefully, no more homeschooling, which I didn't depict in this photo, but oh yeah, anyway, hopefully back to being a photographer very soon.
The New Normal - By Me
Listen To My Creative Process Behind This Shot
Read My Creative Process Behind This Shot
I usually make a point of seeing my Mammy Pearman, about once a week on average and since lockdown, we haven't seen each other much at all. When restrictions began lifting slightly, we started popping around each of those houses for a chat, but from a safe distance.
Barriers to being with the company are something that we've all been feeling with friends and family. I wanted to show the physical barrier that lockdown has imposed upon us all. Outdoor moments.
Outdoor Moments
Outdoor Moments - By Kerry
Along with living the new normal, we’ve all been mostly following the government guidelines of going outside. I’m sure you like me have seen abuse of this rule.
Let’s see what we created…
Listen To Kerry's Creative Process Behind This Shot
Read Kerry's Creative Process Behind This Shot
One of the most positive things that I can take after being a photographer on lockdown, is that I actually felt compelled to do a creative project for myself for the first time in probably years.
My local woods, which are just on my doorstep, had just exploded with a sea of bluebells. And so I decided to visit them as often as I could, at least four times a week, to capture their short but intense lifespan.
So the bluebell diaries were created.
Although a lot of the focus was on portraits of my own dogs and the bluebells, it really gave me the chance to explore the light in the woods. The way that it would create a natural spotlight, as it filtered through the trees, the differences between the soft cooler glow in the morning, the harsher contrasting light during the day and the soft hazy warmth of the evening.
It really made me remember how much, I used to love photographing landscapes and nature.
Outdoor Moments - By Catherine
Listen To Catherine's Creative Process Behind This Shot
Read Catherine's Creative Process Behind This Shot
This is my outdoor moments shot, and I am in my greenhouse. I've actually sub-named it, the greenhouse. It's very creative of me. And you can see I've taken multiple exposures.
This actually is the only shot that actually includes a photo of me looking towards the camera, and it's probably my happiest moment and probably the one where you'll see me smiling most because I enjoy my greenhouse. You can see I've got a whole load of seedlings on the go. And that's a real joy because, at the moment, we could do with a little bit of hope.
Things are a little bit difficult and obviously, we're not earning any money. So yeah, stresses and lots of strains of business are happening, but we have this nice little hobby that I can do from home. And you know, it's good fun.
You'll spot in the middle, I have some Lou Rose. The Lou Rose is a little nod to the whole, we got stuck without Lou Rose way at the beginning of lockdown. Although actually, we had a, quite big supply if I'm honest. Hence why I managed to use some, for seedlings.
Now, the actual shoot photo itself, the different paint layers. You'll see, I'm just depicting the moment some time that we've had outdoors. This is me in my outdoor moment in the garden. I enjoyed it.
Listen To My Creative Process Behind This Shot
Outdoor Moments - By Me
Read My Creative Process Behind This Shot
Getting outside is something I said, I would 100% be doing regularly when locked down began, but it's not something I've really added into my daily schedule after all.
I'm a home bird by nature. And I love that I can work from home.
On the last walk outside, we found a really nice remote loop near the house. This particular trip, we did the loop in reverse to mix things up a little bit and then decided to cut it short, further up the river because we saw tonnes of people had gathered there to feed the ducks.
This makes me think about a collective agoraphobic mood or a fear of crowds, technically known as an enochlophobia developing on the joint consciousness of being alive in this time.
The #CreativeContagion Lightroom Presets Collection
I've created a thematic and timely Lightroom presets collection called #CreativeContagion. It’s designed to help you add more of the current mood to your selfies and DIY photography.
Timestamps for this Episode of #MwahTV
Go Deeper on Creative Direction
If you're contemplting how to get the skills of creative suppliers working in your business better then this is a great episode for you next.
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