Self Portraits in the Age of Corona

Staying with my renewed dedication of continuously making photos, this week I made some self-portraits at the pond in my neighborhood. While I originally set out with still minimal inspiration for my project, I saw afterward that the photos made expressed a sense of isolation and melancholy.

Taking these photos was a fun process, during which I observed more of my neighborhood. While my original process for taking self portraits was to link the camera to my phone through Wi-Fi, this process was clunky in its speed, reliability and its ability to be hidden. I instead used a 10-second timer (with one photo taken every interval until 10 photos are taken) which allowed me to focus more on posing and relaxing while the camera handled the work.

I noticed that the light from across the pond, seen in the picture above, was turning on and off in a pattern. When the light stopped its pattern, the house about 100 yards to my right had a light doing the same thing. While I couldn’t confirm this, it almost appeared as if people from the two houses, on two different sides of the pond, were communicating using morse code.

Had I been in Boston still in my school routine, and these people not confined to their houses, I would’ve never noticed such a nuanced element of life.

Finding Inspiration in the Age of Corona

This week, I’ve struggled a bit to find inspiration for myself to keep this project moving forward. While I experienced relative success in the initial phase of this new project, In the Age of Corona, making three photo sets in one week, keeping the momentum going has been harder.

Last week, I went without taking any photos as I didn’t feel as if there was anything worthy of photographing. This could’ve possibly been due to me being confined to the house more and being consumed more by school work. In the spirit of keeping the photographical juices flowing, I’ve renewed my dedication to continuing making work. I set out upon the neighborhood to take photos of anything.

During my walk around the neighborhood, I took photos of the smoke from people burning fallen tree limbs from a recent storm, abandoned or old structures, and the trees. I found that there will still photos in this set that shared a sense of isolation and melancholy, and these were the photos of the empty streets surrounded by trees and peeping sunlight. I aptly named this collection Streets.

Exploring in the Age of Corona

In the Age of Corona, I aim to photographically explore the feeling of social isolation.

Once considered vapid in our previously upbeat lives, tranquility has become the circumstance that we are either cherishing or despising.

In the Age of Corona, many of us are coping with our newfound serendipity in various ways. Many of my neighbors have turned to yard work. While the owners of homes surely have a laundry list of tasks to complete for their yards, I became intrigued by their desire to remain productive without work.

Through our time in quarantine, we’ve possibly branched into new hobbies or brushed up on old ones. This week, I made three photo sets of my girlfriend and I. In each set, I explore the relative mundane nature of quarantine life.

Project Concepts: In the Age of Corona

I’ve been reflecting a lot on where I would like to reposition my photography project, and at this time I have no clear idea. To go from a time of relative mental clarity in regard to my project to it being completely derailed due to social distancing precautions is a hard transition. While it is certainly possible to photograph the effects of the pandemic around me, I haven’t thought of an equally impactful concept has my activism project. While I could take photos of empty shelves and people with ski masks on, I don’t think this would contribute anything new/original to an already over-saturated narrative.

I suppose I could steer towards a self-reflective photo essay exploring my own social distancing. In my known realm of possibilities, this would concept would be the safest yet most cathartic concept moving forward. However, I worry that such a project would lack consistency beyond the organic capturing of my isolation – should there be something in particular that I focus on capturing? People? Tasks? What would accomplish everything I would conceptually need out of a project while also being visually interesting and engaging for an ideal audience?

Spring Project Concepts

This semester, I would like to continue with my previous semester’s work in senior studio. The project I would like to continue, Boston Voices, will continue to seek to add timelessness beyond the 24-hour news cycle (or an otherwise lack of coverage) to activism in Boston. By documenting activism across the city, I hope to inspire viewers to become more engaged with current events. Through the continuation of this project, in conjunction with publishing the photos on Instagram, I hope to give more normalcy to activism in Boston.

Through the feedback of my senior studio and digital photo III peers, we have identified that this project is more successful through the use of black and white imagery. The one exception to this is having imagery remain in color when red is predominantly present as red is the color of the revolution.

Through feedback, we’ve also identified opportunities for the project. Often, outside imagery of protesters appears overexposed. This high exposure seeks to bring light to protestors’ faces but leads to the sky and other environmental surroundings being blown out. To bring in more environmental context to these scenes, I should work on using a flash to better illuminate protestors’ faces. For guidance in illuminating subjects’ faces in outside environments, it was recommended that I draw inspiration from the works of Dutch photographer, Rineke Dijkstra. Another opportunity of mine is to experiment with more angles that add more creativity to the photos.