April 7, 2020. Day whatever of quarantine. I think we've all lost count at this point and I think it's going to be like this for awhile, unfortunately. All work has halted for myself and for a lot of us during the COVID-19 pandemic. I've had some time on my hands. A lot of time. I've been updating my website, working on it's SEO,
etc. When I do a search for local photographers in my area, I don't show up on the first 15 pages. Obviously I'm not too SEO savvy.
One day during the quarantine, my wife forwarded me a video of a Boston photographer going around her neighborhood and taking family photos of them on their porch. I though it was a great idea for families to get out of their sweats and PJ's and get a little bit of normalcy in their lives, so me and fiance immediately put the word out on the Facebook. Soon, I had some emails coming in asking if I could take their portrait. I even had a birthday parade request, where friends and family drive down the street, honking their horns with kids holding signs out of the sunroofs of their SUV's and sedans with birthday wishes on them. Sort of sad there could be no traditional birthday parties but pretty cool to witness and be a part of.
So with my 55 and 85mm I started my own #FrontStepsProject. I'd arrive at the set time, keep my social distancing from the sidewalk, a brief introduction, 15-30 frames, 5-10 minute tops. For post production, I wanted to images to have a film feel so I played around with some settings in Adobe Lightroom and made a custom preset. I also added a watermark that resembles the date stamp on prints from point and shoots from the late 70's and 80's. So far the response has been great. With no end in sight from the Pandemic, I hope families continue to reach out and participate.
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