Portraits of the Pandemic: Family 'porch-raits' from Ottawa's suburbs

CBC Ottawa reached out to local artists and photographers who are capturing this unusual time visually, for a series we're calling Portraits of the Pandemic.

When Lisa MacIver noticedphotographers in other neighbourhoodstaking family "porch portraits" during the pandemic, she decided to do the same in her suburb of Riverside South. But then the mom and part-time photographer realized just how big a project she'd taken on.

"I sent out the message on Facebook and thenwent into an absolute panic because I realized I couldn't do it on my own. Thankfully, my friends stepped in and we hit the ground running," MacIver said.

Portraits of the Pandemic: Taking front porch photos in Riverside South

4 years ago

Duration 1:14

Lisa MacIver and three friends teamed up to photograph neighbourhood families on their front porches, raising more than $10,000 for the Ottawa Food Bank in the process.

Three friends from her neighbourhood pitched in to manage the finances, schedule and social media presence of the RSS Front Steps Project,leaving MacIver to focus on capturing this unusual time in her neighbours' lives.

The foursome decided to take donations as a fundraiser for the Ottawa Food bank.MacIveralso reached out to Ottawa Public Health to get the OK on takingpictures from a distance.

Once she had the all-clear, MacIverasked her neighbours to come up with creative ways to illustrate their experiences of lockdown at home.

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"The community has embraced it wholeheartedly. We've hadphotos of people with sports jerseys, with dogs, of people acting out scenes and re-enacting theirlife for the last months. We've got a wide variety of photosand most of them have smiles, which is the main thing."

MacIver saidfamilies looked forward to the sessionsas a reason to dress up and style their hair, or just as a welcome break from the isolation. Some families opted to showcase their new daily uniform of bathrobes and messy hair, and some dads refused to take off their ball caps to reveal their now-shaggy hairdos.

"They can look back at this time and say, 'We raised money for thefood bank and look, here's something we can keep from it.' Becauseobviously the young children won't remember this time, but their parents can point to this photo," MacIversaid.

Though she normally specializes in lifestyle photography, MacIver has enjoyedthe chance to flex her portraiture muscles and learn how to direct her subjects with words instead of touch. She even achieved the unthinkable making a dog "smile" and capturing it on film.

Though families told her they struggled with good days and bad through the pandemic, she makes sure to finish each session with a shot of the parents tickling their kids.

"Everybody's eye is off me. They're all laughing and playing, and for the family to come away from a photo session joking is just a hit for me," MacIver said.

The project wraps up this week as the women return to more normal work schedules, having raised over $10,000 for the Ottawa Food Bank.