Life During Lockdown
Despite being able to talk on the phone, over Zoom or using Facetime, Level 3 and 4 lockdown left us feeling disconnected from each other. Although being with our bubble 24/7 could be challenging, I felt other families like my own were craving some way to celebrate and commemorate the time we were all spending together.
This project challenged me to create images in a different way than usual: without getting close to people, tickling the kids and adjusting anything myself! I wanted to reflect each family’s individual personality. I asked them to think about what they love doing together, what’s fun and special to them, to include their pets, costumes or anything else they liked.
The families were all people I knew within walking distance of my home. It became a really enjoyable part of lockdown for me and my kids to scooter around saying hi to people from a distance and bringing some fun to what had become a fairly predictable period of time for all of us.
The Harrods own Teamline, a store specialising in ocean swim gear and they are all passionate about swimming. I suggested they wear something to represent that: I love the swim caps and flippers!
This family spend a lot of time cycling together, so I wanted to photograph them as they were leaving for a bike ride one day. Kelly’s parents had just sold and bought a new home as Covid happened, so they were living out of their caravan on the same property!
I love animals and always include them in photos where I can. The gorgeous Katie is an early childhood teacher and a friend. She’s a fun unicorn, princess and Disney-loving chick, so I told her to embrace that and she wore a unicorn cape and dressed her dog in a tutu, which I love! Katie was alone during lockdown and photographing her on the back wall of her apartment was a fun way to break up her day.
This mum is a good friend of mine, and she had come off her bike a week before, badly injuring her leg. She was feeling really down about not being able to exercise and she told me the photo session that day lifted her spirits.
I even did my own self-portraits, in my bedroom mirror with my children!
Thankfully we are now out of lockdown, and life is largely back to normal. However, it’s always important to capture this particular moment in time and create beautiful family photos to last a lifetime. If you’d like photos that reflect your personality and show your family being themselves, let’s chat over a coffee!