In these strange, suspended times, a camera and lens can be an emotional bridge from one person to the next. As a film-maker you become reliant on the manic energy of shooting and the warmth of your community – crews, actors, colleagues or subjects – to keep you buoyant. Lately, I’ve been taking a lot of photos instead – through open doors and from the other side of the windows, respecting physical distancing – to try and capture the faces of friends and colleagues locked down inside their homes. There’s Nick, pulling a lace curtain aside, staring at me from behind glass. Last year, Nick was forced to retire from his family’s much-loved bar in Fitzroy, after a massive stroke. Now, Covid has put his entire family out of work. At the bar, his wife was the cook, his daughter the bar manager, and two of his sons were Flamenco performers. “The hardest thing has been not being able to see my children and my grandchildren,” he told me. “We won’t be able to connect with hugs and kisses anymore.” Luke is a community healthcare worker who has continued working, without contact, throughout the crisis. His flatmates, a gardener and an IT worker, are both without work. “I am proud of the whole Victorian community for responding in the way we needed to,” he says. “It’s been particularly inspirational to see the Victorian Aboriginal community support each other in a myriad of innovative and necessary ways.” Flynn and Natesha “The Simpsons are keeping me good company,” Flynn tells me. “People seemed to worry about becoming claustrophobic, but the longer it goes on, the more the opposite seems to be true.” Flynn lives alone and has been able to continue his work as UI designer remotely. He feels lucky to be working, but his major client is in the airline industry so there is less work coming in now. Fortunately, it means he has been able to spend more time on his passion – music and film composition. When major restrictions were announced Natesha, a playwright, was on her way to the airport. She was meant to fly to Sydney for the opening night of her play ‘girl friend’ at Belvoir St Theatre. “I didn’t actually realise how drastically my life would change. In a single night, my career came to a virtual standstill and my living situation was pulled out from under my feet,” she says. She was able to see one performance of the play – which a team of theatre makers had worked for months on – before the show, and any possibility of ticket sales and proceeds, was cancelled. “With the support of some incredible friends and colleagues – I now have a roof over my head and work coming out my ears. I am immensely grateful for Australia’s health infrastructure and devastated to see racism boldly rear its ugly head. Time has also lost all meaning for me, but to be honest – I’m kinda into it.” “It’s hard sometimes to find the dividing line between isolation and the final stages of my first pregnancy,” says Tania, a teacher and musician. “Now the fears I had about the pandemic have given way to a happy embrace of solitude.” Because Tania works at a large university, she is not worried about job security – but she is still fearful for the future. For now, she and her partner – a successful musician and producer – are both working from home. It means they’re able to enjoy their final moments alone together, as they wait for their child to arrive. Steph combines work as an architect and a yoga teacher. “Teaching yoga online has … been a huge learning curve; I’m not sure I’ve mastered that one yet. But I’ve found liberation in taking the time.” Mahmood Mahmood abandoned his role as sergeant-at-arms of the Mongols biker club to become a writer. Holed up in the family home, he’s been working furiously. “Reading has been turning me on. Wagner makes me feel like I’ve got butterflies, but Google tells me that’s a sign of short-term anxiety. I’ve learnt a bit about what’s lost when you talk to people who aren’t actually with you. Although, it’s nice that prisons are video streaming visits now – so you can see the faces of old friends without feeling violated by the system they’re in.” I wanted to offer a way of creating some intimacy between the viewer and those people who are lost right now Rhys Graham Isolating alone in her apartment Kim, who works in fashion marketing, has learned to embrace dancing to keep the days passing. “Being holed up, alone in self isolation, has made me see the outside world with brand new eyes,” says Bryan, a writer and Yorta Yorta man who usually moves between homes in Cummeragunja and Melbourne. Bryan was house sitting an artist friend’s dog in Reservoir when isolation was imposed. His friends have been trapped in Thailand by the restrictions, so Bryan has had to stay on, to care for the dog. “I caught a glimpse of the familiar moon when I was wheeling the garbage out a few nights ago and passed back through the house to encourage the dog, Trent, to join me in the backyard. We were out there for over an hour – mesmerised by the moon ... I miss my grandparents and my mob back home at Cummeragunja. My mother works at the local Aboriginal medical clinic there and she told me how wonderful everyone has been in observing hygiene, social distancing and ensuring that contact with the outside world is kept to a minimum. Our elders are to us, what diamonds might be to a materialistic person – highly prized and precious, and so I was so grateful to hear what my mum had to say about how our mob are looking after themselves so as to look after our elders. The thought of hugging and holding my family right now literally makes me cry.” When I first started taking these portraits through windows and doorways, I thought it might just be a handful of friends I shot with. Slowly it’s grown to strangers and the wider community and now I’m collaborating with an old friend in Sydney, photographer Stuart Miller, who is doing a companion series there, and my brother who is making an internet archive for us. There are a terrifying amount of people – freelancers, people on temporary visas, artists, sex workers, community organisers – who are just as deserving of work, security and support as anyone else. But they have fallen through the holes in our current system . Their aspiration are to be part of the community at large, to make things, cook things, provide nourishment, or tell stories as a way to provide for themselves. I’m lucky to be connected to them and to be able to capture this strange moment. It is a small substitution for the warmth of physical connection to each other, when we most need it.