Family Time – My Lockdown Diaries

Black and White Family Portraits
Black and White Family Portraits. Photographs by Nishant Ratnakar

Recently, I completed 38 laps around the sun.

This lockdown phase hasn’t been a great one for people across the world. People are falling sick, losing their loved ones, their jobs, their livelihoods, and a way of life. So much of uncertainty lies ahead of us.

At times it is scary to think of what the days ahead would be like. Have you ever woken up from bad dreams where you are having a free fall? And there seems to be no end to the fall.

In these troubled times, it is our family that helps us sail through. We are there for each other, to shake us up from those bad dreams.

I thank my family for being there. A special thanks to my wife, Swapna, for making an otherwise ordinary day feel special. Thank you for all the love. Thank you for pulling me out of my free falls.

Photographs are the only tangible form of memories. As photographers, we need to belive that strongly. What we create today is not just a visual. It is a snapshot of time that would be revisited time and again. Since, last five years, I have been journaling memories for my Ruh as dadagrapher. More about it in a later post.

A quick question: In this lockdown, there are no commercial shoots. No clients. No stepping out. What are you shooting?

Don’t be lazy. Please do yourself a favor. Use this time to make portraits of your family and friends with whom you are going to see this phase through. You owe it to them. Not just for this lockdown journey, but for the shared journey called life.

I am posting a few images from the series of portraits that I made with my family on my birthday. Click on the individual images to view the portraits in a fullscreen lightbox.

It was a minimalist lighting setup. My favorite go-to setup: the one light setup. A trusted old Godox AD200 portable flash, fired through a small, gridded Octabox. I use it quite often for headshots.

I made the photographs on my Fujifilm XT2 mirrorless camera set on a tripod. In the frames where I’ve posed with my family, I triggered the XT2 using Fujifilm’s camera remote app from my android phone.

Also, this was a quick edit on the mobile phone. My usual Adobe Lightroom workflow is on a break since the lockdown. I transferred the photos from the camera to the phone via wifi and converted them to black and white on Snapseed. I love black and white portraits. Do you?

Now, go and make portraits of your family!

Nishant Ratnakar
Follow me
Latest posts by Nishant Ratnakar (see all)

By Nishant Ratnakar

Nishant is a Bangalore, India based Wedding, Portrait & Editorial Photographer. He is available for assignments across India. He also conducts photography workshops and offers personal photography mentorship.

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

0 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x