Documenting Family Life in Lockdown 3
On the 4th January 2021, the government announced that England was putting England into its third lockdown. Schools would be closed and myself and many parents were set to home school their children again.
I started photographing and document our families activities during this latest lockdown, it soon made a daily task to capture a photo of my kids lives.I started taking photos of the kids as we started another period of homeschooling, I started taking photos of the kids to document this very unusual period of our lives and it ended up turning into a daily part of our lives that I turned into a project. During the last lockdowns I have taken photos of the kids but this time I wanted to document it. It has been such a challenging time for everyone, especially the kids. They have coped amazingly, but sometimes found it hard to understand why they can’t just see their friends and visit our family. I also feel very grateful that I have been able to spend so much time with them. We have had loads of fun and my wife has planned a lot of themed meals and days to keep everyone entertained. We have celebrated birthdays, had loads of Facetime calls, joined in with zoom classes, PE with Joe Wicks and loved Saturday nights mini Disco with DJ Slug. We had lots of dog walks, playing in the woods, homeschooling, den makings, baking, sleepovers and movie nights. Homeschooling has been both rewarding and hard work. There have been times when we just are watching TV or the ipads. For me it was important to photograph the boring bits as well as the fun times. It was also important to me to keep photographing, as most of the weddings I was booked to photograph have postponed to next year. It is a very hard time for the wedding industry but hopefully things are looking brighter.