This week on Photojournalism Now: Friday Round Up – two pandemic lockdown projects: Magnet galleries 5km Radius: Documenting the 2020 Melbourne Lockdown; and Photographers in Confinement a project curated by FotoEvidence publisher Svetlana Bachevanova and hosted by FOTODEMIC.
If you haven’t done so already, please watch our new video interview series Photojournalism Now: In Conversation – subscribe to the channel by clicking on the red A. There are interviews with Robin Hammond, Renée C. Byer, Sean Gallagher and Lisette Poole.
Virtual exhibition:
5km Radius: Documenting the 2020 Melbourne Lockdown
Continuing its virtual exhibition series, Melbourne’s Magnet Galleries called for local photographers to share their experiences of lockdown. For the past few months Melburnians have been confined to their homes and not allowed to travel further than a 5km radius, save for exceptional circumstances. These are a few of the exhibition images taken during this time. On show until 15 November.






Photographers in Confinement: A project by Svetlana Bachevanova
FOTODEMIC is an online platform established by Fred Ritchin and a group of graduates from the International Center of Photography in New York in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The site is host to Photographers in Confinement, a project by founder and publisher of FotoEvidence Svetlana Bachevanova who has invited photojournalists from around the world to submit self-portraits of their time in lockdown.
Bachevanova says “Photographers in Confinement is a collection of self-portraits made by photojournalists from five continents during the unprecedent lockdown due to the corona virus pandemic. Photographers are people on the road, living to document the lives of others. Constrained by the lockdown, many of them had their first experience of being still long enough to begin seeing and understanding small details about who they are, their lifestyles and values, that were overshadowed while they were busy. These self-portraits express their experience.”
As Bachevanova points out, “This is a unique collection of self-portraits from some of the best lenses in photojournalism at an historic moment.” I love this series, the raw honesty of the photographers, their creativity and the unifying experience that comes from knowing that we are not alone in feeling like crap, wondering what life will be like on the other side and valuing the coping mechanisms that we have taken for granted.
If you are a photojournalist and would like to participate send your submission to svetlana@fotoevidence.com
Here is a small selection. Visit FOTODEMIC to learn more about this initiative and view more detailed submissions.





