Lockdown Photo Series

When the lockdown hit, the pressing question for creative professionals everywhere, was how best to survive the initial shock. Arnold knew that his extensive back-catalogue of over 100,000 commercially-available images would keep ticking over for him. And although reduced, he could also count on the lingering demand to cover on-going news-related events.

Before the lockdown, Arnold would be predictably darting across Sydney, shooting all manner of openings, concerts and red-carpet photo calls, as well as theatrical and cultural previews. A quiet day would find him topping-up his rogues’ gallery, drawn from the daily churn of the District Courts.

The lockdown began to ease after ten weeks. By then, viewed through a rear-vision mirror, Arnold’s previous professional beat appeared as a frozen and fading mirage. It’s hard to say which bits will return.

Even before the lockdown, the media sectors where Arnold’s work regularly appears, were already undergoing long-term structural changes. At the same time, newer distribution channels and platforms had been emerging and expanding. Quite suddenly the steady pace of Darwinian evolution jumped to warp-speed. Familiar mastheads and older magazines disappeared mid-sentence. Some hung their hopes on digital future. With too much to know, subscriptions for news sites ballooned. However, advertising revenue failed to follow. Maybe the lack of financial follow-through foretold the underlying recession that still awaited.

But if Arnold wanted to thrive once the lockdown had passed, he knew he needed to pivot—one of the words of the pandemic—and in real-time. This meant embracing new approaches and reaching for expanded outcomes. Like all who undertook a pandemic pivot, there were no guarantees of later payoffs. Maybe this is how innovation unfolds at the coal face? It certainly requires intuition and practical intelligence. And few creative professionals could wait for a government grant or an industry review.

Arnold took the opportunity of additional time on his hands, to create a series of longer photo-stories. These are more adaptable for a broader range of uses than the more singular images he routinely collected from the quickly canned slate of curated events—the openings, closings and celebrities. These fell through a hangman's drop—before anyone noticed—taking with them a retinue of important somebodies—with no recourse for appeal.

As the lockdown progressed, Arnold followed a number of creative professionals and sportspeople as they similarly struck out on their particular and unfamiliar paths. Each series includes the sort of standard portrait images Arnold may have taken at countless curated events over the years. Editors love these as anchors to a fuller treatment. The deeper story becomes apparent through a series of more intimate reportage-style images. These show Arnold’s collaborators as they progress; putting together their own particular pivots. In these images, the subjects betray little concern for the camera's gaze. These reportage-style images impart, more authentically, the distinct personalities, capabilities and passions at play.

As he undertook the series, Arnold constructed several hero-style images of his collaborators. These images serve wonderfully as editorial openers, summarising the spirit of the content. They almost write their own headline. Such set ups succeed with the rapport that builds from working together over an extended period. Both involved are conscious of the camera and its capacities for striking image making. The resulting images declare boldly and together, the virtuosity of both photographer and subject.

Viewed as a whole, Arnold’s Lockdown Photo Series is a record of how a band of sports and creative professionals—including himself— wove their various paths through a life-changing period. As the lockdown eased, the future remained uncertain. But Arnold and his subjects had refigured their capabilities to better position themselves for when the future arrives.