This is an interesting time for creatives, and I would know because I am a photographer, writer, and a graphic designer. As a student and a big sister to 3 girls, times have been tough, and my family and I have had to adjust. Everyday for the past 4 weeks, I’ve had to commit to being a homeschool art and spelling teacher, and a student with all my courses online. But somehow I’ve had more time for my art and writing. It’s hard to find inspiration to create when life is less adventurous and you can’t experience much while sitting at home and just trying to stay productive.
As a photographer, it’s been hard to find new ways to take pictures, and new subjects to have for those pictures. But last week my sister and I came up with the idea of experimenting with my camera skills and her modeling skills. We share a small room and we have a bunked bed, so we set up a white blanket under the top mattress, coming down to be our backdrop. We also use a lamp for our light that I moved around while taking the pictures, to get different affects on the quality of the photos. I used moved around to many sides of the room and used props like a book, and my big winter jacket. Although we just did this for fun, these came out to be some of my best portrait photos. Here’s a little look:
I do believe that I would never get these pictures if we weren’t quarantined and always home. I also have more time for writing my poetry and I wrote a good poem a few weeks ago when this all started, inspired by social distancing and everything I’ve been personally going through so far. For me, the only positive to come out of this crazy pandemic, has been my time spent on writing and art. I’ve also learned a lot and I’ much better with time management. Before this happened, I was almost never home, between work, school, business, my friends and my boyfriend, so when I was home I’d relax and procrastinate and I’d use the fact of me never being home as an excuse to not get much done while I was home. Since I’m always home now, there are no more excuses and I’m always trying my nest to stay on top of things and keep moving forward.
But I will get through all the negatives that come with these positives, because I have my writing and art.
Here is the poem that I wrote:
