Bob Cut 3rd Anniversary BTS
VIRTUAL PORTRAITS FOR BOB CUT MAGAZINE
07.15.2020
Bob Cut Magazine wasn't going to let COVID get in the way of celebrating their 3rd anniversary, so they brought me in to shoot 23 portraits of the community via Zoom and using only screen captures from my laptop. Here's a short clip of some of the process.
Anthony (the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Bob Cut found me for this job through a social media post I made regarding portraits over Zoom. I was getting stir crazy during quarantine and thought I would offer to do some virtual portraits. He saw my post and thought it would be a great way to shoot his 3rd Anniversary cover celebrating the community that makes up his readership by photographing 23 folks via Zoom and making a collage to wrap the magazine.
It was an exciting challenge to photograph so many people during a time when my exposure to the outside world was very limited. Even just having more than three 20-minute shoots in a day felt exhausting when I’m normally capable of so much more. I also realized I make really funny faces behind the camera and I never realized it because I don't look at myself while I’m snapping photos in real life (thank god!). So, I learned about my "creative face” and tried my best not to be creepy looking. There was also a lot of surrender in not having much control over the files once they are created. These screen captures don’t do well in photoshop, as one might imagine, so basically what you see is what you get. It put extra attention on refining the light. Speaking of which, I also felt like one of those talking heads from the cartoon Futurama because I was having people carry my camera around for me all over their home and nuancing everything by my direction. Very strange to feel so helpless on set!
