Content Creating during Covid 19 Lockdown/DIY Photoshoots
Baby Angie circa 1993
On March 25th I turned 27 years old. I made so many plans on how I wanted to celebrate this birthday. Birthdays in general are very important to me, celebrating them and embracing them. Not everyone is blessed to make it to another year of life and for that in itself it should always be celebrated. This year God had other plans and due to the pandemic named Covid 19, South Florida along with the rest of the world was on a government mandated lockdown. Initially I talked a good game, “ I’ll be fine, I’ll just celebrate after, it’s no big deal” but if I am being completely transparent, I was not. The days leading up to my birthday I started to feel very lonely. Those feelings of isolation seeped in as reality hit. Not being able to go to the beach, be around all my friends and family publicly really made me sad. I never enjoy staying in those type of moods, I don’t think anyone does. So I woke up one morning and decided I needed to change my mood. I decided to create my own birthday photo shoot. Yes, sometimes the cure for me, is to work. I went to the dollar store and had a mini shopping spree. Getting fake flowers in different colors and brainstorming on how I wanted to execute this. Fast forward, I ended up creating a bomb photoshoot to celebrate my birthday. This shoot sparked something in my head and for the next couple months I started curating photo shoots.
The shoot after my birthday was inspired by a challenge I saw on tik tok. It started on my Instagram what I would call my “color series”. Basically using different colors to create a shoot. From the outfit, accessories, makeup and backdrop everything was centered around one color. This really allowed me to put my creative mind to work and I enjoyed every color I created. Additionally I was able to work on my modeling skills fully by being in front and behind the camera essentially. My makeup skills were challenged as I ventured using various colors to create looks that I wouldn’t normally use probably outside of carnival. To maximize the use of my content I started to include a form of a tutorial on an aspect of the look. For example, I did a purple look and filmed a hair tutorial on the braid that was used in the look. While this was beneficial to me it did require a lot of work to essentially be the talent and the director, as my cousin would call it.
Nonetheless, I’ve learned so much about myself as an artist and a person and I’m glad that I allowed myself to just create for the sake of creating. I think it’s a lost art form when it comes to being a “content creator “ or an “influencer” it’s so easy to get caught up in making what’s trending, or thinking about what’s going to get the most likes or exposure. It comes with the territory of being around this social media focused time, but one of my goals for this year is to change that. I don’t want to focus on the likes or how many followers I have, I just want to create. I’m so grateful for my website and “Angelic Thoughts” to be another place where I can share that creativity, so thank you for coming along for the journey. I’ve attached some of the work created as well as the video content, check it out! My self portraits can also be found in my portfolio section on here so give them a look, I’ll be actually adding some more content there as well.
Birthday Photoshoot
Orange Series
