I am here, and you are where you are is a series of portraits of people all over the world during the coronavirus pandemic, many of whom I have never met in “real life.” I am shooting these portraits remotely: me in my apartment in Manhattan, them out there in the world, using whatever technology is available.

Time and time again I’ve found the process of making these portraits with friends and complete strangers unexpectedly intimate, moving, and powerful – often more so than in-person portrait shoots. This gives me hope for a new kind of intimacy in our digital future.

The process itself is intensely collaborative; making full-blown photographs, rather than Zoom screenshots or Facetime hacks, is only possible with uncommon involvement from the portrait subjects themselves. This active participation, I believe, was critical to the sense of intimacy and vulnerability shared between us.

Someday, these portraits might serve as a reminder of our lives and emotions during these unsettling times. But right now, in this strange and bewildering present, they’re a way to reach out to one another, to engage, to create, and to have fun — in other words, to live.

Nikola Tamindzic, New York, March 2020