Lockdown Daily Photography Practice
March-April 2020
The early days of the global coronavirus pandemic had so much uncertainty and fear. We all went into lockdown, confined to our homes and restricted from nonessential travel. I passed this time by engaging in a daily photography practice. I didn’t impose any constraints on subjects, camera, lens, composition, processing, lighting, etc. The only rule is that I would make and share one new photograph each day for 30 days. Here is the collection of photos that I captured during this remarkable period in our time.
DAY 1 - This morning I was getting ready for work and opened the blinds in my office. The sun was still low in the sky and the light came through the window and illuminated the top shelf of this bookcase where I keep various life mementos. I see this bookcase every day. But today I saw it differently. The light was perhaps telling me to pay attention to the ordinary and the routine because ordinary and routine is now suddenly different for all of us (at least for a while). I knew this was my first photograph.
DAY 2 - The tree in the back yard. It was a wet and snowy day in Denver today on this first day of Spring. This tree just stands there in the weather, waiting for the time when it can put out its leaves.
DAY 3 - I took this photograph on my midday walk around the park with the dog. This is a drainage ditch, but covered with snow it almost could be a mountain stream. And then you see the abandoned shopping cart—something that doesn’t immediately seem to fit the scene, but is nonetheless an essential part of it. Some photos tell a story. This one does for me.
DAY 4 - Today I visited the 7/20 Memorial. I'd not been there before. No one was around. It was calm and quiet and the sun warmed me.
DAY 5 - I spent the morning photographing the blinds on my front door. Very ordinary. Certainly not a grand landscape. I can take even the most ordinary items in my house and work to make a photograph that is visually interesting.
DAY 6 - How lovely the silence of growing things.
DAY 7 - I had a loose concept for this photograph of the quiet swing set, and the post processing adds to the general feeling of starkness that I wanted.
DAY 8 - This photo is all about shape and contrast and leaning a bit more into the abstract (as opposed to a literal photograph of my light fixture and ceiling).
DAY 9 - Lake Mary is my favorite place in Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge. This floating walkway at the east end of the lake through the tall reeds is just so lovely at sunset.
DAY 10 - An intimate scene from my morning walk with the dog. “A drop of water, if it could write out its own history, would explain the universe to us.” —Lucy Larcom
DAY 11 - A cup of tea and a good book. "The only way something matters—the only way something has meaning—is as it pertains to a minuscule flicker of consciousness within the sliver of eternity that is the present." —Guy Tal
DAY 12 - Find your inner Zen. I spent the afternoon in the basement with the macro lens, a light tent, and my makeshift studio lights trying a little product photography. It was a relaxing aroma-photo-thera-tography session.
DAY 13 - Seeing this bright yellow daffodil on my morning walk with the dog brightened my day.
DAY 14 - I spent some time at the end of my workday out on the deck with a lucky bamboo plant and my macro lens. The result is something completely abstract and wonderful.
DAY 15 - If you focus on line, texture, perspective, and tones, perhaps even walking around the backyard and taking pictures of my siding and roof can yield something visually interesting.
DAY 16 - Water droplets from last night froze as the temperatures fell early this morning in Denver. Absolutely time to pull out the macro lens.
DAY 17 - Another photo from my walk this morning with the dog. What drew my attention here was the spacing of the trees and how, from this perspective, they form a large triangle in the center of the composition. It felt balanced to me, despite the overcast and cold morning.
DAY 18 - Documentary photography chronicles events or environments both significant and relevant to history and historical events as well as everyday life. Today’s photo is a self-portrait. It’s not artistic or creative. It’s not pretty or beautiful. It’s simply documenting real life in our world at the moment.
DAY 19 - The late afternoon light on these developing storm clouds caught my attention.
DAY 20 - A little street art love for today’s photo, courtesy of the neighbor kids down the street.
DAY 21 - Today’s photo is all about my remote work coworker keeping a close watch over the neighborhood and waiting patiently for me to finish my online meeting so we can go play in the yard.
DAY 22 - Create something every day. “Life can be so much broader, once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people who were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things...” —Steve Jobs
DAY 23 - We are beginning to see signs of spring here in Denver, although it will be winter again this weekend.
DAY 24 - Today's meditation. "Perhaps, even here, I am growing. When the days are long and I do not feel as strong and when the hours go by slower than they ever have before, and the sun is shining and I am lost indoors, perhaps even here, I am growing...learning to be at peace in what does not make sense to me. Perhaps, even here I am growing. So I will inhale and exhale. It is well, it is well, every day is a part of the story I will tell. I am free to breathe here, free to be here, free to be at peace when nothing makes sense here, because perhaps...even here, I am growing. Perhaps, even here, I am growing." — Morgan Harper Nichols
DAY 25 - My afternoon photo shoot with Arlo devolved into a good roll in the grass.
DAY 26 - My touchstones.
DAY 27 - I tried some frozen bubble macro photography this morning in the frigid cold. In the end, I liked the way this photo of a nearly completely frozen bubble turned out.
DAY 28 - Lovely light washing across the grasses during this evening’s walk in the park.
DAY 29 - How about a sunset hike up Waterfall Mountain? As someone who loves the grand landscape, I'm using my photos from these final two days of my daily practice to honor our public lands and wilderness areas by participating in the #ourgreatindoors photo challenge.
DAY 30 - The experience of walking through and photographing in a slot canyon is simply amazing. This photo, which is another creation for the #ourgreatindoors photo challenge, is a tribute to the public lands and wilderness areas that offer us countless experiences and that we must continue to protect. It's been a fun and challenging 30 days of finding something new and interesting to photograph each day while under stay-at-home orders.