A Personal Photo Essay

The Bird family is at home. We read our books, watch movies and TV shows. I frequently travel somewhere else, back in time or to another country, another culture. Each day is beautiful in the budding blossoms of our garden or the laughs and smiles of our son. Light through the windows make playful shadows on the floor. Our old cabinet stereo is modified to play streams of music so our house is full of it, Beethoven, Mozart, Beastie Boys and the Beatles, whatever delights our ears. Without the urgency of work, minutes can be stretched into hours. There is time now to be still, and in stillness find the poetry in the movements of life around us.

We are lucky to be healthy and sane, floating in this sea of uncertainty. We are non-essential workers so we stay at home. There are no sessions in the studio, no portraits to shoot, events to document or campaigns to produce. Work has changed. The sounds and rhythms of our family have changed. The tenor of our times has changed.

The seasons are changing.

By order of the Governor our studio has closed. One change leads to another. Our spare bedroom is now an office that happens to have a bed. Kristina and I use computers we brought home on makeshift desks. We take turns at work, the morning shift is mine, Kristina is the afternoons. We alternate responsibility for our two year old, MacGregor, so whoever is working is not interrupted by his persistent curiosity. She cooks breakfast, I cook dinner. I’m getting better at cooking dinner. Things change.

In our time at home we have not been productive with work. I feel guilty and ashamed admitting it, especially as an artist, but also as a business owner. This government mandated staycation is an opportunity to embrace creative pursuits, to make art that client demands rarely allow room for. I limit my time on social media, where I see other artists making statements of life and beauty to share with the world. It hurts me to see them appear so effortless performing what I struggle to accomplish. My limitless energy for work and my enthusiasm for photography is at it’s lowest in 23 years. Before March 12th, right now almost every client project is on hold. New projects are not in the pipeline, everybody is conserving cash as a buffer against the certain uncertainty in the coming months. But it’s doesn’t matter as much to me now as it once did. Our son is so cute and his needs have an immediacy that photography doesn’t. He would rather we read to him than work. It’s easier to read to him.

We are most fortunate that he is so well tempered.

Each day takes us further from who we were and how we use to live. Every day faces an uncertain future, always just past the horizon, never quite here. The speed of the pandemic is swift in its statistics, but slow to witness in day to day life. The pandemic is purgatory, waiting for something past it.

In the Bird house, we wake up every morning to the happy babbling of MacGregor, who needs changing and feeding. We make coffee every morning. Day to day life continues, even as its changed. Our son reminds us the pandemic is a part of life, not it’s entirety. He gets hungry and sleepy, sometimes loving and sometimes bored, no matter what the news is.

Every day I am overwhelmed by how lucky we are, and grateful.

We are fortunate in our degrees, a good financial education, physical health and resilience from our community who help with their love, efforts and diversity. As difficult as work has been, learning just how much support and warmth we have has become one of my most enriching and memorable experiences of my life.

I miss how we use to work. Some of our business will not be coming back when the pandemic ends. That is fine, we will change and adapt what we do, or do something different. The studio can contract and become smaller but continue. There is inevitable opportunity in change, we are ready and alert for when it presents itself.

Truth is revealed in this pandemic. We are finding our truest friends. People we really need to talk to, who we need to communicate with. Friends we grow closer even in our distance. Not all the lingering pandemic effects will be bad.

I have the loveliest of families. Each day is a discovery. I find new things to adore in my wife, new growth to witness in our son. I am waking from my pandemic lethargy, and planning on making some photographs, little ones to find the rhythm again, and see what has changed.

Let me know if our life is different than yours, or similar. I’m curious to know how and what we are all doing with our time.