I just wanted to keep in mind that there will be an end to this quarantine.” The constraints were significant: self-portraits, at home, every day. I don’t speak Italian at all, but I thought that ‘ con fine‘ would mean ‘with an end.’ Maybe I’m totally wrong. “I had to come up with a name related to the situation, and confiné in French means confined. The goal of his Con-Fine series, initially separate but soon part of his 30-day challenge, was to share a photo a day with Els, his long-distance girlfriend. Gregory had just started a 30-day photo challenge when the lockdown became effective in France, and what had begun as another attempt to create a Youtube channel to show his creative process, ended up being a record of life in quarantine. But being a couple of creative minds, they took this unfortunate situation as an opportunity to have some fun documenting their quarantine experience. Together since 2018, but living in separate countries (Els in Belgium and Gregory in France), the COVID-19 pandemic put a stop to their seeing each other in the short-term. And I remember waiting for her mail every evening and spending time writing one myself.” Els replied to it the next day, and we started communicating daily pretty quickly after that. “I don’t know why but I felt the need to tell her that I loved her photos, so I wrote down: ‘send a mail to Els Vanopstal’ on a piece of paper that stayed on my desk for weeks until I decided, one evening, to write the mail. “I was surprised to see that she was still active and still taking incredible self-portraits,” he says. Gregory remembers the day he rediscovered Els’ Photostream after a period away from Flickr. This virtual friendship eventually led them to meet in person and from there developed into something more. In 2018, they began corresponding on Flickr about each other’s photos. Such is the story of Els and Gregory, two photographers with a penchant for self-portraiture and lifestyle photography. We know that photography brings people together on Flickr and it’s always a delightful surprise to hear about long-lasting friendships and relationships that start here.
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