NSW battled to put a lid of the spread of the coronavirus with lockdown orders that began in March and ran through to the end of June.

Stay at home was the order of the day - for work, for school, for just about everything.

But something else began to happen on a cultural level: businesses and people began to experiment, to make changes they would have never tackled without forethought and funding.

Luke Kellett, principal and managing director of Headjam creative agency, was among those eager to capture this moment in time.

Kellett is also a photographer of substantial reputation, and chose to put his skills to work capturing Newcastle people at home - literally standing in their home environment.

Kellett was overseas when COVID struck, flying back into Australia on March 14. After two weeks of quarantine, he could move around, just as the NSW lockdown bit down hard.

He started shooting the images almost immediately, with the intention of documenting the period for history's sake, well before the elements of the exhibit came together.

The results of his efforts, done in collaboration with Newcastle Museum director Julie Baird, is an exhibit, isolation: Portraits of Newcastle during COVID-19 which opened at Newcastle Museum on Friday.

The show features 21 large-image photographs of Newcastle people on their home turf, shot with a 4x5 flash format camera. The environment is still.

"Everything has parallel lines. Everything is almost the same," Kellett says.

Of course, the people are a huge variable, and their own static surrounds are telling in their own way, too. Some folks dressed up, particularly children. There is the odd pet or two, some by intention, some by accident.

The architecture speaks for itself, capturing a poignant view of old Newcastle homes, everywhere from the East End to The Hill, Warners Bay, Abermain, Islington and points in between.

The same size and shape for every image creates a likeness by the mere dimensions. But, opens up the diversity of the subjects within.

"It's a stereotypical outside of home shot, but in a completely different way," Baird says. "That's what got to me looking at Luke's photos. How different everyone is, but they are all the same."

Kellett has previously done a series on ethnographic photographs of the bohemian community in Melbourne, which was purchased by the Victorian State Library.

The isolation series, which includes 60 portraits and another 200-plus landscape images shot during the lockdown, many of places that would normally be busy but became dead quiet, may end up with the State Library of NSW.

"As a museum, it's nice to put on something that is current," Baird says. "Normally with museums it takes a while to flip it, but because it's just Luke and I working away, we thought, 'let's do this', do something completely different, get it up and out."

While many of the photographic subjects were friends and acquaintances, some were not, including a homeless man, whose picture was shot with his belongings at a toilet block he sometimes used for shelter, and a woman who was a victim of domestic violence - who was photographed with her children at a halfway house.

Each image has an accompanying label identifying the subjects and their responses to a few questions - 'How are you filling your days' and 'What is the first thing you want to do when the health order is lifted' and 'What has been the most positive surprise'?

As part of the exhibit, Baird says the museum is inviting people to answer the question, 'Will the world be the same after COVID?' and encouraging them to respond and also send in their own photographs.

Also opening on Friday at the museum was Colour - See the world in a new light, created by Questacon, with more than 20 interactive experiences. It opened just in time for school holidays, and runs to January 31.

"It's first time we've had any interactivity since COVID," Baird says. "It feels, for us, like normal is coming back in a way."