COVID-19 Lockdown 2020 - Using Photography To Combat Boredom

There's no escaping the big elephant in the room, the Corona Virus that is sweeping across our planet during the early part of 2020. What started as a localised outbreak in Wuhan, China soon grew into a worldwide pandemic that has affected us all. My wife and I have health issues we deal with every day and we have taken the advice to stay indoors whilst our wonderful NHS here in the UK tackles the deadly virus that has been officially named COVID-19. Panic buying was rife during the early days of the pandemic, but that has largely stopped as people began to realise that we need to stay focused and calm and look after each other as best we can. The pandemic will be a part of our collective history in the future, but most of us will remember it as "The Great Toilet Paper Famine Of 2020" as that was one of the first items cleared off the shelves in supermarkets and shops around the world, along with Pasta and Rice. We are a strange species at times.

The best method we could use to combat the pandemic was simply to stay at home, self isolation combined with washing your hands regularly and Social Distancing (who thought that one up?). Self isolation has one huge draw back for the multitude that had to stay at home. Boredom. There are only so many times you can see the same news report on TV, or watch box-sets of your favourite programmes on the streaming services. Social media is also a pain as the same memes, videos and advice, both good and atrociously bad are constantly bombarding us. The question is, what to do?
 
Photography can help relieve the boredom and is good exercise for the mind. Everyone has a camera with them these days, the humble mobile phone, (or cell phone for our chums across the pond) has developed a heck of a lot over the last 2 decades. It has grown from a personal telephone into an all encompassing personal media device. The internet and some beautifully eloquent micro electronic engineering has put a Computer, Hi Fi, Radio and Cameras into our pockets. We can access everything in an instant and share it just as quickly with family and friends around the world.

Phone camera's may not be as good as a pro DSLR or Digital Video camera, and It wont be long until they are, but I still prefer to use 35mm Film. I have film and digital camera's at my disposal so I thought I would combine them to spend a day or three of my self isolation to  polish my skills. First step was to shoot 2 rolls of of my stash of Kentmere 400. I also chose to use my trusty Pentax SP500 and my Nikon F801 (named N8008 in the states) that I will be talking about in a future blog post as it's rather special.

I needed to choose items to photograph, but what? There's only so much we can see in our homes and gardens and I needed to get creative. My first thought was to take advantage of the beautiful spring sunshine and play with shadows and texture with my F801. I used my own shadow and various gardening tools and soon had a few images in the can. I started by studying logs I have in my garden. Tree bark has great texture and tree rings gave a sense of time to my images. Bricks generally have a range of textures and the holes in them are great for providing shadows and depth. It wasn't long before I had finished my roll in my F801 and I decided to wait a couple of days to use a roll in my SP500. I had pretty much exhausted my creative muse in one day so a day or two to refresh was welcome.

For my second roll I wanted to try something indoors and use longer exposures. My Pentax SP500 and Helios 44m-4 is great in daylight, but I have never really used it indoors on a tripod. My subject for the shoot was my beloved Bass Guitar my wife surprised me with for our first Christmas together. I will never be a virtuoso on bass, but I can play along with my favourite songs when the mood takes me. Now that I had my subject I needed to set up the shot. 

I have some extension tubes and close up filters in my kit and they have really come into their own during the health crisis. I spent some time with my extension tubes to get the shot I was looking for on film. Using extension tubes or close up filters you can get really close to your subject capture some intricate details. You can also use a DSLR or a phone camera to get an idea of how the shot will look, either will give you an instant look at your composition and you don't have to wait until you have developed the film to see it.

To use the remaining shots I had left, I returned to my garden. The weather was cloudy, but there was enough clear spells to give my images some shadows to add to their texture. I spent some time studying items in my garden and also managed one or two of my dog Charlie that I was grateful for. He usually buggers off sharpish when I get my camera out, so I made the most of the opportunity. To round off and interesting day I got my Nikon D90 DSLR out and used my close up lenses to study a small ornamental Buddha on my coffee table before tea. I decided I wouldn't hang around after finishing my evening meal and got my developing equipment together to process both rolls.

I learned a few things from my photo sessions during the first week or two of lockdown. I learned that you don't need to leave the house to find interesting shapes, textures and shadows. I also learned that Kentmere 400 is very forgiving. I hadn't used it before and I now know why it is not just the low price that makes it perfect for the novice film photographer. The last time I used my SP500 I had been shooting Ilford FP4. Guess which silly boy forgot to reset the film speeed indicator. Oops! I unwittingly pulled Kentmere 400 by 2 stops by shooting it at 125, but I got away with it and managed to produced some rather splendid images. If I had planned it I might not have got anywhere near as good images as I ended up with and will quite happily take that happy accident as a lesson learned and file it in my memory as you lucky, lucky barsteward. Here are a few images from my photo sessions, both film and digital. I hope you enjoy them.