Over the course of 4 weeks, our Maker 8 class has been practicing our photography skills alongside our story telling capabilities to build a photoessay that answers our driving question “how can we as photo journalists tell stories of our community during this time of physical distancing.“ It was a long journey where plenty of knowledge was gained and many revisions came in to play but it resulted in a successful experience and a path worth following.

To start us off and get our creative juices flowing we had a mini task in which where we had to take self portraits with the idea of composing an image in the back of our heads. Even though this was a small task it was something enjoyable and made me get creative. 

Before we could start shooting for our photoessay we had to understand both the techniques of photography and the impact the coronavirus has on our lives. Although we all knew how COVID-19 is effecting us as grade eights, we had to see it in someone else’s perspectives while being an active digital citizen. We had to show this by connecting to the world using technology and conduct an interview with a community member. The effects the coronavirus has on people varies which means some people or businesses are struggling more than others, with this knowledge I decided to interview the new local candy store “Zucker Treats.” As I asked questions about what the coronavirus has done to them, I began to realize that being a new store this was a hard pill for them to swallow and they had a very large chance of going out of business which would be heartbreaking for them and the whole Deep Cove community. After the interview I took everything they said in to consideration and started brainstorming possible themes for my photoessay with closed stores being one of them. 

Jessica & Caroline From Zücker

I was struggling to decided what I wanted to focus on in my photoessay so I started glancing at other peoples take on it and there was one in particular that caught my eye and that was “After the end of the world: the eerie silence of the Las Vegas Strip.” Something about it just really interested me and I wanted to make mine similar to this one but unfortunately for me this didn’t really have a theme or tell much of a story so it was out of the possible options. I had finally chose my topic and that was something to do with soccer but I didn’t know where to go from there, I was at a stalemate for a long while until I contacted my teacher and asked for some assistance which certainly helped. After hours of decision making I ended up going with how the soccer community has been effected by COVID-19 and how people are adapting. I created a very simple storyboard explaining how the shots would look but as I intended, they changed significantly. 

It had eventually reached the time to actually take the photographs and since I enjoy photography taking them wasn’t too tricky. There was one thing I wasn’t looking forward to in this phase and that was that I would look like an idiot just wandering around soccer fields capturing many shots from different angles with people trying to just stay active whilst physical distancing. I knew that I had to get this mentality out of my head because I would get nowhere if I waited until everybody cleared out. It was smooth sailing after I got over that fear except for the fact that some of the places looked different than I had pictured in my head, so I had to adapt and figured out a way to capture the certain shot. 

It was time to create the photoessay with all 9 of my shots; some of them better while some of them worse than I expected but I had to go with it. This last hurdle of the project took a lot longer than I believed and harder to pull of as well but I had to keep my growth mindset and push until I reached something I was proud of. I started off with my first draft which was genuinely awful, everything about it just wasn’t good so a knew a revision was needed. I got back to work with more photos and created something with more meaning and tells a story. Although it was much better than my first attempt, I still wasn’t exactly super happy about it but there was nothing I could really do, my photos just didn’t seem very appealing and engaging. I would really like to do this project again with a different theme and see if I could improve. Unfortunately this project didn’t go exactly as planned but sometimes thats just how the cookie crumbles. 

I know it is hard to believe that this situation is actually happening but it is reality and in a few years people will be wanting to know what life was like in these strange times. Some people may be living their best life, playing video games, sleeping in, staying home and are wondering what everyone is fussing about, but we are all witnesses to history and it doesn’t feel right but this is real life and we need to adapt. My story is about the soccer community and all the things that have changed, and I’m sure there is something that you have had to give up or adapt to in order to still enjoy whatever that is in your specific community.