Thursday 2nd April 2020 - Good Friday 2020
This post has taken longer to write than most and I think that's been because of a change in perspective.
This blog started out as a sort of photo album of the life we are living because of the current crisis we find ourselves in, but it's becoming uninspiring and if I am honest, limiting.
Creating a blog to document life within a national lockdown can only go so far. It can only present so many shots of the limited range of places we can visit and interact with because of what our national guidelines state. Because we are a family, I think a deeper level can be reached, offering greater value to what we do in this unprecedented time. And no matter however many entries are drafted, each has as intent to provide a meaningful sense and angle to who we are as a family and often, why we do what we do during our 'new norm.'
I think this whole project has evolved and this happens as we evolve for one reason or another and I really feel that this is where we go next.
This can't just be a diary because there is too much involved and too much at stake. In my previous entry, emotions began to play a more defining part and rightly so. To not be emotionally involved in all that is happening and how 'this' all unfolds globally, would mean you weren't human. This time is about All of us and because of that and the unique insights we gain from different people and places, wherever you discover them, everybody's individual fingerprint during it is of the utmost importance and that includes ours.
Exactly, a year ago, we were on a brillant family holiday in the Lake District. It was idyllic and life changing. As I write this post on this, a glorious Easter Saturday, we would have been on our way home from a second spell there, as we had booked the same week, leading up to Easter Sunday, as we did last year.
Who would have foreseen all this coming to pass?
During my time with my family at the Lakes, I began to think of a new project that spoke of my faith and how being there gave me a grand sense of Heaven on earth. The scenery, the company and the overarching sense of being closer to God was overwhelming. It was life changing. Mix into that, the book I had purchased, called 'Heaven' and all the ingredients were there to live a new project and document us living Heaven on earth.
If this chapter were given a title - and I think I now need to do that, so that I don't repeat myself - then I would call it 'Moments.'
For me, this project - and indeed my photography - is no longer driven by the state of events that dictate our lack of movements and wider interactions. No. This project and my photography has a stronger calling, pushing Covid-19's influence down the pecking order. It's now about documenting the moments we live 'On earth as it is in Heaven.' It has the capacity to blend my faith, my family and opens up my passion of a photographer to capture us living the highs and lows in a better place during the 'new norm' and after it, should it end.
These photographs show that I wouldn't be anywhere else in the universe than with my 3 boys and my wife, doing what we are doing, living as we are and as we would in Heaven. Are we scared? Yes. I am. But I am not letting fear get in the way of singing, smiling, relaxing, running, craft making, playing football, celebrating life defining moments when your first tooth falls out, learning in nature, blowing bubbles and cooing over them, talking to good friends, LEGOing, cooking and eating sausages outdoors, swing-balling, declaring that Jesus is ALIVE, making slime, being beautiful and mucky and reading to our toy doggies. And taking photographs.
For us, we want to live Heaven on earth and - for now - minus the family and close friends we can't hug, it's enough this way.
This is a new perspective and the new way forged for my photography.
New beginnings. New normal to look forward to.
And tomorrow is Easter Sunday!
(And there is a rare photo of me in this collection, bravo-ly taken by my wife. It's a special one too)
