Covid covers now a global hit
THE pandemic is getting weird now. Good weird.
Robert Seker’s recreations of classic album covers featuring the residents of the London aged care home where he works have become an online sensation, sparking joy in some otherwise grim days.
Mr Seker told News Corp he devised the shots as a fun activity for the residents of Sydmar Lodge while the centre was locked down and they were cut off from their families.
“[The residents] were pretty willing straight away when I mentioned [the idea],” he said.
“It was either a roll of the eyes, or they got excited because it was something different. They don’t want to sit around all day long. They want to be doing things.”
The shots seem full of affection – both for their subjects and the iconic record images they playfully rip off.
Mick Rock’s famous up-lit shot of Queen in their Bohemian Rhapsody heyday has been reworked as a homage to the facility’s carers, complete with lots of funny details. Freddie Mercury’s fingers – so dramatically splayed in the original – have been recreated with a nurse in surgical gloves, while the topmost figure is a staff member with hair as big as guitarist Brian May’s.
The 41-year-old said his subjects were all good sports about the project, even when it came to baring skin and allowing themselves to be facepainted, as one resident did in order to recreate the cover of David Bowie’s 1973 classic Aladdin Sane.
“Roma is an amazing lady,” Mr Seker said. “She’s a very strong character, as you can probably tell, but she’s also game for anything.”
The “hobby photographer” said he could not pick a favourite image but said he was humbled by the “overwhelming joy” the images created.