MUM CAPTURES DOORSTEP LIFE OF LOCKDOWN
THE London lockdown will be remembered for a lifetime.
It’s been a time of real hardship but it’s also given us heartwarming moments of connection that wouldn’t have happened under normal circumstances.
One Hounslow mum has captured life under lockdown with a series of doorstep photographs of London families and flatmates.
Photographer Sadia Barlow, 57, and her husband Ian, 53, run their own photography company helping small businesses with personal branding.
But like a lot of industries, there wasn’t much work for photographers when the Government announced we should stay at home to flatten the curve of coronavirus infections.
Sadia said: “When the lockdown happened our work dried up instantly, we spent a couple of weeks licking our wounds and then decided that we would be proactive.
“We missed photography and missed the creativity.”
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Inspired by the iPhone photos of Isleworth she would take on her daily walks and an artist in America taking front porch photos of households quarantining, she decided to see if Londoners would be keen to have their own doorstep photos.
Sadia was thrilled at the number of people who wanted to be part of the project.
She said: “I think people want to commemorate this time because it is exceptional and it is both difficult and yet it’s heartwarming in many ways.”
They asked people to donate what they could for a portrait of their own and have raised more than £1,000 for the NHS from the tens of people they photographed.
As well as the many strangers Sadia and Ian photographed, they took the opportunity to capture a very personal moment when they visited Sadia’s 25 year-old daughter in Notting Hill for the first time in several months.
“I hadn’t seen her since way before lockdown,” Sadia said. “So she stood on the doorstep with her flatmates and when we rocked up I just took one look at her and both of us burst out crying and my husband happened to take a photo.”
Ben, three, from Isleworth, pictured with the brand new kitten he was given just before lockdown. His is one of many families Sadia photoUXBRIDGE’S