Photography Through The Pandemic

Photography Through The Pandemic features the photography and words of 49 photographers from across the world who were inspired — all in very different ways — by the Covid-19 pandemic. It is a look at the myriad ways that the Pandemic has affected photographers from all around the world and from all different backgrounds. The connecting factor being a love of analogue photography and a desire to continue to create during these universally difficult times.

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But this book isn’t just about photography, it is about shared experience, the different ways we as humans respond to crises, and how we learn to cope in our own individual ways. It is also about the power of creativity as a coping mechanism and could perhaps even be seen as an important document that – through words and pictures – captures a moment in human history that won’t, or at very least shouldn’t be forgotten for decades to come.

Kickstarter Launch

Photography Through The Pandemic has just launched on Kickstarter with a target of £12,000. If 250 people buy the book via the Kickstarter campaign, this will raise the cash needed not only to deliver those 250 books, but also to deliver a free copy to all of the photographers involved. This is the goal of this campaign, not to profit, but instead to see this book become a reality whilst also repaying the contributors with a free copy of the book.

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Diversity

Within this book are the voices of a hugely diverse selection of people from all over the world, including people from different cultures, different races, genders, and sexual orientations. With this comes an enormous variety of experiences of this strange time we are living through. But whilst the experiences, stories and photos are different, everyone who contributed to the book is connected by their response as a human being, as well as a shared passion for film photography and alternative photographic processes.

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Background

Holly Gilman, who has curated and compiled the book, found herself curious to know how photographers from the analogue photography community – both amateur and professional – had dealt with all that came with the restrictions and social isolation. Did their art help them deal with their response? Did they find inspiration in the experience, or did they feel creatively challenged and stifled?
The idea of collating people’s responses in the form of a book was born.

With a little bit of help from Hamish Gill (the founder of 35mmc.com) and contacts she made through the website, Holly was able to find 49 photographers from every corner of the globe to submit images and write about their personal experiences.

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The book explores the idea that photography isn’t just a hobby for many people. It is in fact a necessary tool, a coping strategy when times get tough. Photography can be the way we express ourselves, connect with others and also distract ourselves from the anxiety-riddled news stories. This is something very much brought to the surface by the Covid Pandemic.

The Book

The honesty and raw emotion that people have shared permeate the pages and – although we might be biased – we think this is an absolutely astounding collection of work.

Photography Through the Pandemic was produced by Hamish Gill/35mmc and was curated, compiled and designed by Holly Gilman. It is over 200 pages and is going to be produced on high-quality paper in hardback.

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Photography Through the Pandemic Launches on Kickstarter on Wednesday 27th of October at 4pm UK time.

The Kickstarter Campaign can be found here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hamishgill/photography-through-the-pandemic

Quotes

A quote from Holly Gilman, creator and compiler of the book:

“My experience of the Pandemic was not THE experience. I wondered how this time had affected others. Have they spent endless days honing their craft? Have they found inspiration within the same four walls they’ve looked at every single day? Have projects been halted or even started as a result of social distancing? Are people expressing their innermost thoughts and feelings around the virus and the politics through their art? Or can they not even bear to look at their cameras at the moment? Of course it’s all of these and even more and this is why I wanted to make this book. I wanted this to be a broad and diverse range of stories. I wanted to ensure that we were mixing together the stories of different ethnicities, genders, sexualities and religions as well as mixing professional and enthusiast photographers.

I really feel that this is something that has been achieved in this book and I am just so proud and so honoured to have met and worked with each and everyone of the contributors.”

And as a final word from me, fundamentally, this book is a photobook. It’s produced by a photography blog, curated and compiled by a hobbyist photographer, and contains the photos and words of people who consider themselves to be photographers. But somehow I think the book is greater than the sum of these parts.

To both myself and Holly, it feels like a document of a moment in human history, and therefore is not just relevant to other photographers, but to anyone who is interested in how we as human beings responded to such difficult times.”

For more information, please contact me!

~ Hamish