projects | df-photography

March/April 2020: A week into 'sheltering in place', I started going stir crazy, knowing that I would‘nt be able to shoot for who knows how long. I also knew this would become a decisive and historic time in all our lives and I felt the urge to document those moments. As a portrait photographer I obviously wanted to reach out to my clients whose happy occasions and milestones I have photographed for many years. I found their stories and perspectives of life during a pandemic quite remarkable and their response to my project phenomenal! I received so many heartfelt stories about life during COVID-19 that I wanted to share them.

Yes, it’s a big contrast to pair each client’s photographs with the 'normal' ones, but it's so interesting, too! We all tend to want to show ourselves in the most perfect way possible during a photoshoot but here they are in their most natural state, coping with fear and insecurity during an unspeakable time. In many ways, this project has been the most intimate and inspiring experience of a lifetime!

(Also I have never yelled as much during a shoot and I always feel like a creep, lurking around in yards with my tele lens and peeping through windows...)

Shot during a lifestyle-y Personal Branding session back in 2018.

Melanie and her son Atticus obeying the Safer-at-Home order.

"The truth is, we'd talked about what it would be like to have more time together. We reminisced the days when we weren't running from place to place and our calendars were more open. The truth is, we began staying at home more and limiting weekend outings weeks before #covid19 and #shelterinplace orders were mandated. Though this is not how either of would have ever imagined more quality time would be served up nor would we have wished for it to happen in this way. Yet here we are, together. Not just us, all of us. Moments of joy, moments of fear. Moments of uncertainty and confusion coupled with moments of sweet togetherness. There have been tears, we're grieving losses. There have been smiles, we're re-imagining what we want the world to look like and what parts of this experience we'll take with us. There has been more work for me paired less time and less support. Dishes pile up and laundry mounts. It's a moment of multiplicties, juxtapositions and seeming contradictions. And we're choosing to make every moment count so that as we continue to unravel and re-emerge, we'll find new ways to be and do that create more beauty and opportunity for everyone."

„We are now at day 25 of staying at home, week 3.5 of school at home, and almost 3 weeks of the Los Angeles order of #saferathome. The new routines happened quickly but many continue to evolve. The beach bike ride we went on the first weekend is now no longer an option, so instead we take the boys to big empty parking lots to ride bikes & scooters in circles or we count dogs and people, looking out the big window on the second story. The school curriculum and guidance for what to do each day has been pretty open, so we've come up with our own ways to make sure a little time is spent each week day on reading, writing, math, and another subject or two. Writing has primarily been cards and letters to classmates, so my oldest has discovered the joy of both sending and receiving a hand-written letter in the mailbox. It is a highlight of his day to check the mail, and almost each night we have a new letter to put inside the mailbox to send off the next day."

The Johnsons out and about pre Covid 19.

Shot during a Lifestyle session last summer.

"One of the things I'll miss about this period is how quiet it is in the middle of Venice - even with windows and patio doors open, I'm taken back to the sound of living in the country when I was growing up outside of San Antonio.“

"Here’s our story behind the poster we hung up on our front steps:
Right before we accepted our global duty to #stayathome, I had a rough miscarriage. The news of our growing family had been the blessing we had hoped for...but it was out of our hands and coming to terms with the loss was a path I’ve stumbled down before. The halls of miscarriage can feel dark and lonely, but lending a voice to an otherwise hushed topic helps cradle the ache of the loss and shed light towards a path of healing."

The Gross Family out and about pre Covid 19.

Shot during a Lifestyle session before social distancing.

"So, here we were at the onset of our own tiny journey of sadness when the whole world was thrust into a parallel state of grief. The things we had become accustomed to taking for granted now seemed luxurious; trivial things and meaningful things vied for new categorizations. Like many parents, seeing the world through our children’s eyes can offer the crispest, most genuinely beautiful perspective. It’s been a breath of fresh air to hear the things that make my two year old happy these days. He sings the word “family” spontaneously throughout the day and he’s genuinely excited to go on a family walk or eat a family meal together. Earnest “thank yous” roll off his tongue left and right for sharing a toy with him or teaching him to bake bread. His eyes don’t see the pain of our loss or the fear in our world; they see safety, love and sincere gratitude. This experience has encouraged us to grasp on to the light and gratitude at a time our family needed it, but more importantly, at a time our world needs it. So, that’s the message we want to share: GRATITUDE. For our little family-we are enough. For our neighbors, both local and global-we are strong enough. For every essential worker, no offering of gratitude is enough, but we hope our little family's messages lift your step because you are so deeply appreciated. Yesterday, today and tomorrow. Always.”

„We returned to LA less than a year ago after sailing around the Sea of Cortez for the past 3 years."

Just days before she gave birth to her second daughter Vera...

„Living aboard a boat is the perfect prep for sheltering in place. The biggest adjustment to life I’ve faced this year is actually deciding to settle down on land to fulfill my daughter’s dream of attending ‚a real school‘. Yet two weeks into our transition to living on land, the pandemic came and our life fell back to our kind of normal, living without a set schedule and always being together. The unfortunate part is that both of our lines of work came to a halting stop and as we work in tourism and entertainment and we expect them to be the last industries to start back up. But we are back on our boat now, in the same place we had spent the past 3.5 years ‚isolating‘. Don’t get me wrong when I say we’ve been in isolation for all those years. We are in fact very social people and have decided to quarantine as one ‚boat’ family with our dock neighbors. We just rigged up their boat into a giant harp, went sailing and had an ocean concert. We’re all knocking boat projects off the list which are always endless. This is coming back to the way we were while on the go in our small home on the water, where staying connected to loved ones from a distance was normal and stocking up on supplies and prepping food from scratch was mandatory. Living without a schedule, facing obstacles and gifts as they came, was and is a way of life.“

Mother & daughter, quarantining together during Covid-19.

„I decided to stay with my mom and my husband with our oldest daughter’s family, because my mother is a widow in her 80s, living alone, she doesn’t drive, and I want to be there for her."

Mary & Linda in different times 4 years ago.

"I struggle with the unknown like all of us and am experiencing anxiousness... However spending quality time with my mum is the silver lining for me. We entertain ourselves, go on walks and her positivity brightens my days.“