Covid-19 – Selkie’s Photography

Portraiture

I have a sort of existential dread and cold sweat that comes over me when I think about telling models (or indeed the poor friends and family) that end up in front of my camera what to do. So when portraiture came up in the course there was a little panic. This is probably the only time the coronavirus has been helpful as I could mostly work with people I knew to get the work done.

Clockwise from top left – With a Precious Object, Through Glass, Without a Face, Self-portrait in the Style of an Artist (Picasso in this case) and With Movement.

My poor mother… She hasn’t quite gotten over the shame of wandering round the building we’ve not long moved to dressed in my Harry Potter cosplay robe. Each of these images had briefs of their own. The self portrait is built of 6 different images and was almost a bit of a cheat. I didn’t want to turn my camera on myself directly, at that time anyway, so built it out of old selfies. The thing is I can take good shots of people if they don’t know it.

Clockwise from top left – Work from my Higher at the Christmas Style Mile Carnival and the SEC Craft Fair, a shot from the night photography workshop in Edinburgh and my personal favourite, The Shoe Seller in Tenerife.

None of these were posed…..And I almost prefer these to formal, posed images. Heck “The Shoe Seller” is a bit of a portfolio fixture at this point. I accept that there’s a definite need for images that are posed. It’s maybe just not my thing just now. Need to work on it though because I’ll need to do a studio shoot or two when I get back into the college buildings.

Where Do We Go From Here?

I’ve been collecting photos of the social distancing floor dots since the first lockdown lifted. Finally collated into one image just in time for another shift to the rules before Christmas. All taken with my phone’s camera. Nothing sums up the current situation than the waiting and distance between people.

Hands… Face… Space…

The final creative project for my still life unit in college. A recreation of the government’s Covid-19 advice graphic using my favourite tiny railway model people.

Hands – Hand sanitiser swimming pool complete with Baywatch lifeguard.
Face – A discarded face mask ski slope. Has various levels of difficulty.
Space – Get your health and safety signage painted by our elite crew of painters. Don’t worry they do clean up after themselves.

All done as set ups on my desk top. It’s one of the easiest things to do. The fight I had with photoshop at 1am to put the work together however…..