⚘ Mythohuman // Maria LankinaSOCIAL DISTANCE PHOTOSHOOTS DURING COVID19

Expect the unexpected.

No, no don’t get up, no really. Don’t get up. From your chair, when you are shooting on trend – screen capturing your subjects via video chat options such as FaceTime and Skype and so on.

Dreams do come true. Now you don’t need to leave the house to photograph your favorite celebrity.

Now, lyrics aside ( hah ) , below is a quick festive, unexpected, challenging and by all means – AWESOME Expierence of FaceTime shooting in my career as a photographer, hopefully not the last.

With the covid-19 pandemic looming over all of us, creatives came up with the idea of photographing others without actually being in each other’s physical presence.

Yesterday one of my inspirations and great friends Fuastina agreed to collaborate on FaceTime shoot

I warned her I had no idea how to do a shoot like this. Faustina was gracious to agree to experiment and play.

She appeared beautiful and prepared and had her ideas intact for the shoot.

My own perfected technique, before COVID19, involved improvisation , movement around the subject, being in control of what I see and positively surprising everyone, including person photographed, as the end result.

With FaceTime a lot of end result depends on very tight collaboration between the subject and the photographer : searching for the best visual composition of the space, placing available light where needed and so on. It means asking your sitter to be your hands and your eyes for the moment of set up.

Minor technical difficulties, only 5 minutes in after directing Faustina, I realize that she can’t actually SEE me.

Using back camera of the phone, delivering higher resolution images, took away an opportunity for Faustina to see herself OR me for that matter, madly gesturing finessing the pose I am seeing compositionally in the shot.

Voice is my only device during FaceTime shoot to direct the model.

As I see it right now – facetime shoots, are an incredible training for developing one’s vision – you literally have to create a shot like art director would, AND with available tools and lighting at the sitter’s chose place, along with that you have to be able to verbally direct the sitter / model to position themselves exactly how you see it or correct, help them navigate posing they have already assumed, with voice and voice alone. That requires finessing one’s communication of what is needed, in their own head first and then to the others.

As an abstract artist painter I leave my assertiveness and dominance to my canvases, that’s where I experience it the most in my life in private, only later sharing action painting expressionistic artworks with everyone else.

I can count on one hand amount of shoots out of thousands I have had, where I exercised may assertiveness to the t, usually due to time constraints or complex production schedule and so forth. During smaller shoots I am able to maintain a sort of neutrality ( I think ) and be understated. SOFT hand so to speak.

With Facetime one needs to be verbally assertive to insure results one envisions.

I am happy Faustina trusted me and I m happy my photography muse delivered, as always.

I am looking forward to exploring FaceTime photographing all the people that I have been wanting to photograph for a long time throughout the years, and due to time constraints, and / or geography or $ cost – it hasn’t happened yet. Now is as good time as ever.

What other shoot can I quickly run out of to spare five minutes to save my artworks left outside in a garden studio, being stacked in the rain, AND come back to continue the shoot without losing a breath 🙂

Looking forward to exploring new medium . Stay tuned for next blog post, where I elaborate and offer you a checklist of things to look out for , during, before and after the shoot and my new workflow in pre and post production of the images, notes and thoughts on quality, and why I think this new trend is so stay and make us all better creators.