The shoot with cellist Justyna Jablonska was meant to happen in March this year but, like many other projects, it was postponed until it was safe to do it. You know, something about a pandemic. When I was finally on the train to Edinburgh for our rescheduled shoot after the restrictions had been lifted, I realised I hadn't missed taking photos at all and begun to wonder whether I still had it in me. I wasn’t even sure whether I was interested in photography anymore. I know it may sound like crazy talk, but crazy seems to be the operative word for 2020 and it was genuinely what was going through my head sitting on that train (mask on, thank you very much).
During the lockdown, I was lucky enough to be healthy and have money to get by (was also eligible for the self-employment income support scheme) and after the initial panic, I decided to make the best of a bad situation. I found a strange comfort in knowing that we were all in the same boat and that there was absolutely nothing I could do. So I did things I don't normally have the time to do - took some online courses (music theory and such), read books (Maya Angelou, soul trilogy by Stuart Cosgrove and Ronan Farrow’s brilliant Catch and Kill among others), I messed around with music, played the guitar - you get the picture. I missed swimming but overall it wasn’t hard going for me.
Anyway, 5 minutes into this post-lockdown shoot with Justyna, I felt an overwhelming sensation of being in the right place, at the right time, doing what felt right. Perhaps it wasn’t so much that I didn’t miss photography, it’s just that I needed some time off to realise how much I actually loved it. Justyna and I had a great time, we shot outdoors and in her flat, it was easy and fun and we’ve already got other projects in the pipeline together. Check out some of the images below for the time being:
