Yesterday my mood was on downwards. Almost as cloudy and grey as the weather.
As a busines owner, I'm used to mood rollercoaster, but white in the lockdown and the uncertainty for the future, it gets worse and hard to manage sometimes.
When this comes, I always try to hold on to Photography.
Photography has never been a job or just a way to make money for me. It's a language that gave me a voice. A way for me to communicate with the world outside, and with my inner self.
It is something I can always rely on.
When I started Project HOPE this week, I didn't plan how it will go! Where it can go!
I just started.
Shortly I will write bit about the project here:
Like everyone, I had lots of plans and hopes for 2020.
But we all found ourselves in this unusually hard situation that we couldn't of imagined.
"Fear" suddenly became the main actor in our lives. Fear for our health, fear for our financial status, fear for the future... Fear for not being able to see our loved ones again.
Besides the physical health issues the COVID-19 pandemic has created, our mental health is also being threatened. People already struggling with mental health issues, found themselves having to deal with this new stress of the lockdown. Including the youngsters.
As a photographer, I wanted to do my small part in supporting the community in the current situation that we all are in. So, I decided to convert a future photography project of mine and fit it to the current climate: This is how Project HOPE came to life.
Project HOPE is a non profit photography project to create awareness in Mental Health again and raise donations for the Mental Health Foundation. On Project HOPE, I photograph dancers in lockdown. It is in a way, a documentary project, but I also want to create a positive perception to the situation we are in. There is always hope. There is always a joy in life. So I thought photographing dancers would fit perfectly in presenting this.
As a photographer, dance doesn't only fulfil an artistic expectation, but also gives me hope to overcome challenges that ties us down. It is fascinating to witness how the hard work of a dancer results with such an elegant and flowing outcome. In that point, Project HOPE, unites with the positive perception of the dancer, whom overcomes the struggles and speaks out a universal language of joy. Space and time doesn't matter. While dance itself evoke to freedom, dancer is the hope.
When we feel alone, and facing with struggles, I believe that the dancer can inspire us for progress. I'm trying to express this with the photographs in this project.
On Project HOPE, I started photographing only local junior dancersjunior and dance students based in Wilmslow, avoiding unessential travel according to the previous guidelines. After the ease of the rules this week, I expanded the project a little bit further outside of Wilmslow. Thanks a lot for all the support of yours to carry this project so far. It was so much fun to photograph the junior dancers and dance students. And we had some fantastic photos, create lovely memories together, whilst helping for a good cause.
And now the project started a new phase and going to continue with Professional Dancers only! From now on Professional Dancers will be photographed at different outdoor locations in Cheshire and Manchester for Project HOPE. I will be writing a new blog about this new phase and sharing the beautiful photographs of dancers. We already had a photoshooting with professional dancer Rachel Maffei / co-director of Coalesce Dance Theatre / dance teacher at Aspinall Academy of Dance and dancer Anna Papatheodorou / registered RAD ballet teacher / Noodle Performance Arts Cheshire / Fuschia School of Dance.
Here is some photographs we had taken with them.
Of course still keeping the social distance on the photoshootings, acting with in the guidelines, not risking anyone, including my self and my family.
You can donate for Mental Health Foundation via the link below.
Thanks to everyone who is giving their support and contributing with this project.
Means a lot.
You can do your donations via gofundme link above but I will keep the main post on my Facebook page too, which has a link via Facebook that already got some donations.
Here you can find some of the junior dancers and dance students photographed on the first phase of Project HOPE.
