Week 1: Trying to be creative during lockdown

As everyone will know we are now in lockdown, and are now (I believe) on week 6 of being confined to our homes. Yes, I have been going slightly insane, and feel as though I have done everything I can possibly do, in this small flat, however, one thing that has helped me, has been the power of creativity, and the ability to experiment with my work.

I am ashamed to say that since finishing my Master’s in September last year, I have not picked up my camera. I didn’t fall out of love with it, I didn’t get bad grades, I just stopped photographing. Maybe I needed the break, but this current (stressful) pause from real-life, full-time employment, and trying to juggle everything, has allowed me to ‘get back on the horse’ as they say! I have used this time to produce work that maybe has no meaning, work that does not aim to be published, produced for a gallery, or as a professional piece. Just work that I am having fun with, and doing because I love the art form, and not because I have to do it.

It took me a while to even think of what to shoot, but Instagram was the perfect source for my influence, and guidance accounts such as: @eolhcsheppard has created the @isolationartclub which gives daily themes to help people to keep being creative.

Here are a list of other accounts producing either weekly themes, or accepting submissions for creative work during isolation:

• The wonderful @dotdotart produces online art exhibitions weekly, via her Instagram story, based on specific artists, so keep an eye out for that!
• @rankinarchive produces themes on a weekly basis, so that you can submit work at the end of each week.
• The renowned Martin Parr Foundation @martinparrfdn, also sets weekly challenges, all selected my the legend himself.

I imagine there are hundreds more, and it’s incredibly refreshing the amount of new creative work I am seeing online everyday. I really hope it stays!!

So for the work I am producing myself in the first week of isolation, I have decided to just photograph my surrounds, mainly within my home, but the areas of life that are mundane. Below are a small selection of the photographs I took. Light being my main attraction throughout, I wanted to experiment with a natural light source, and produced this imagery.