Have you seen our most recent Photos of the Day on social media,? Each day on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, we feature wedding photos and portraits of the week that really stood out to us, and we ask the creatives behind the photos to detail the image’s backstory and their technical approach. Here’s what caught our attention this week.

Hold Still 2020

Hold Still, a digital exhibition at The National Portrait Gallery and spearheaded by the Duchess of Cambridge, recently included Rebecca Douglas‘ image as one of just 100 from over 31,000 entries. The images chosen collectively tell the story of what 2020 has been like during the pandemic.

“So much of my work is about interaction and capturing moments,” says Douglas, “so to have been this far away, unable to talk directly to my subjects, Paul and Simon, was a very isolating experience of photographing a shot for me.”

“Such a striking and singular image from lockdown that evocatively captures the sense of isolation we have all experienced in one way or another,” says Nicholas Cullinan, who also chose it for the Gallery’s Directors Choice selection.

Adds Douglas: “I’ve never entered anything like this before and am so honored to be part of a collection of such powerful images.”

In Transit Together

Photographed by Bottled Groove Photography’s Eugene Tan HZ on Singapore’s Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) train, this session focused on this couple going about their daily life while on one of their dates.

“The MRT train is one of the most utilized mode of public transport that people use in Singapore, and I had really wanted to capture this moment between this couple,” says Tan. “There are several rules to follow when taking public transport in Singapore but once we were past that, wanted to especially include the moody lighting within the train—I feel its encapsulates the essence of how COVID-19 is affecting everyone lately.”

Fully Aligned

“Capturing the right angle for this image was a very, very painstaking process,” says photographer Lindsay Adler.

“Adjustments in angles were in millimeters and was a combination of adjusting the height of the subjects, the angles of their face, as well as the camera angle. It took about 10 minutes just to achieve this single shot.”

Adler adds that she decided to create this image with these two sisters because their features were “similar enough that they would look almost like twins. They both had such beautiful eyes and features that I knew their beauty would help draw viewers into the frame.”

Save The Bees

Aly Kuler collaborated with a makeup artist for this unique portrait, which he then entered into WPPI’s print competition, earning him a Silver distinction in the Individual category.

“The concept for this makeup look was “The World WITH and WITHOUT Bees,” Kuler explains. “One side of the model represents the world we know today, where bees are contributing to the environment. It is a green world filled with vegetation and life, while the other side represents a world where bees won’t exist, and eventually neither would we.”

Picture Perfect Prom

Back in May, after “60 days of not working, not feeling inspired nor creative, this was our silly dream,” says Applehead Studio founder Liam Hennessey of his Socially Distanced Prom Project idea.

“What we’ve learned over the years is how important the simple, classic group photo is, regardless of the occasion,” he explains. “Everyone line up, get close and smile. It is timeless and yet simultaneously and permanently stamps ‘that time in your life when…’” Of course with 2020’s high school grads unable to get the same experience most grads do because of the pandemic, Hennessey really thought about how to come up with a way to do a gorgeous group prom photo safely. Thanks to the magic of photoshop and the finest team of people I’ve ever worked with, we have been able to bring high school grads together. And by ‘together’ we mean still socially distanced and never really together,” he says. “It’s fake, it just looks real, because thats how it should feel.”

Dig into the Photo of the Day archives for more compelling imagery.