Today's world in an era of quarantine is very far from being normal, it's extraordinary, challenging and appealing. And - of course - it also massively affects the photography industry as it does with the whole creative sphere. Staying at home to save people's lives is our mission for now. But how can we stay sensitive to our creative souls under these arduous conditions?
I found the answer for myself in switching to photoshoots via FaceTime - quite abnormal, isn't it? Exactly like our whole life right now. But surprisingly this kind of photoshoot lets my creative needs evolve and the models bloom and get so much more involved in the whole process in comparison to offline photoshoots. Everything you would need for the FaceTime shoot is to have a phone and an internet connection. The same is relevant for the model, completed in the best case scenario with a tripod for stabilising the phone. But it will also surely work without. Not too much needed, right? In the end you get amazing captures to remember. Quality and sharpness can't be as good as when it's shot on professional cameras offline due to technical equipment and shooting conditions. It is most important here, that you create the strongest memories of how you react to the challenges the life gives us, how you continue to develop and stay flexible. It memorizes the unique historical moment for the rest of our lives.
As a photographer you get even more space to be creative: you look online for right corners and angles in unknown apartments, you interact in a much more sophisticated way with a model to give him or her exact directions, you can't help yourself with the best technical equipments, so you just become a genuine visual artist who has to find the ways to express the feelings: your own and the ones of the model. This is nothing like a real photoshoot and at the same time this is nothing else but the real photoshoot you are used to. You are still an artist, seeking to capture the beauty and the truth and - on top - to give the world the feeling of boundless possibilities and hopes.
And as a bonus I'm leaving here a backstage shot with me in the upper right corner. Probably this will be kind of a new watermark (a photographer's signature added on the photos) in the world we live in right now.
Please stay healthy and #stayathome. It will get better soon.
