Since COVID-19 changed all our lives, photography has gone from being a hobby to being a lifeline.
Welcome to my journey through the pandemic.
Camden, Kentish Town, Kings Cross, Clerkenwell, Islington, March 2020 –
Wear a mask
Stay Safe
Protect the NHS
Keep Smiling
Pictures taken on Pentax K-5 or iPhone 8+, editing done on Photoshop Express for iPhone, Carbon B&W Studio and FILCA.
People
Who are we?
Pandemics are human events. Watching how individuals have responded to the situation has been moving, inspiring, and sometimes challenging.
But it has also changed how we interact. Social distancing demands new ways of thought and masks challenge the clarity of communication.
“In front of the lens, I am at the same time: the one I think I am, the one I want others to think I am, the one the photographer thinks I am, and the one he makes use of to exhibit his art.”
Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida (1980)
“…surveys of routes miss what was: the act itself of passing by.”
Michel de Certeau, “Walking in the City” (1980)
Places
Where are we?
Lockdown meant that most of us were restricted in our movement. The hour of exercise imposed a radius within which I began to pay close attention to small changes. Trips beyond that area started to acquire new significance.
One-way systems, new entrances and enforced exits all rewrote our places, public and private. The familiar was rewritten – overwritten – by the new.
Things
What are we?
The pandemic has made ordinary some objects that we would not have expected to see on our streets. Masks and gloves in particular have been discarded on pavements.
Signs and directions have also acquired new importance, rewriting the script of everyday life. Slogans, repeated at every possible moment, in every location imaginable, began to empty themselves of meaning.
“…objects, images and patterns of behaviour can signify, and do so on a large scale, but never autonomously.”
Roland Barthes, Elements of Semiology (1964)
Framing the Moment 