A year is too long

When the pandemic started last year, in March 2020, outside of the obvious implications that it had to various aspects of my life, like work stability, I saw it as an opportunity for coming closer with my creative side. I previously talked about how the extra time that we were all, all of a sudden, gifted with was an opportunity to explore new things, evolve my photography and videography skills and spend more time with my family. And that was true for the first three months.

When I started this journey a few years back, I use to feed on my weekend explorations. From meeting friends at the park, travelling during long weekends, or even exploring the city of London, my creativity had a plethora of opportunities to feed on. I spent the first three months making various short videos, aimed at exploring new techniques and creative angles. My product photography also saw an improvement, given I had to work with what was inside my immediate vicinity.

But it’s now been a year since we locked ourselves in and things don’t look as exciting as they once were. Work hours started getting longer, exercising hours shorter, and together with this, my creativity slowly disappeared. New video uploads became sporadic and photo walks became a rare commodity of my new weekly routine.

I missed it. I missed being creative, making videos and taking photos. And that’s the truth. So I spent one day thinking of a story for a video I wanted to make. I did some research online, jolted down a few ideas, but at the end of the day, what better story to tell than the one you already live? So I started writing a script. This gave me enough to think of creative ways to explore it, resulting in the video below.

I spent the following weekend creating the storyboards, writing the scenario and the camera angles. I wanted to make a short narrative story where I would be addressing my self. Once I was happy with what I had on paper, it was time to film. I spent the weekend after that, setting up the cameras, lights and compositions before I hit record. It took me almost the entire day, and another day to edit everything. I was taking my time. I was enjoying myself.

The result? I’m not one to judge. I’ll leave that for you. Let me know what your thoughts are. All I know is that it felt good. I was being creative again, to the point where I revived my appetite for more, hopefully soon.

Till next time…