The Eye of the Storm - England 2020
I have avoided a direct photographic response to the Covid outbreak, largely because I spent the majority of the time with my family and girlfriend, at my mum’s house in Oxfordshire in relative tranquility. There has been a guilt that has stopped me from wanting to voice my reality when so many people have been completely devastated by the pandemic.
As things settled momentarily over the summer, I went back to London for a period to shoot some work that had been on hold over lockdown and to work out what ‘the new normal’ meant for me.
Although I had a few jobs I wasn’t rushed off my feet and spent days on the streets capturing the mishaps and happenings that I passed. With street photography I spend a lot of time trying to capture the whole story as I see it, everything that I am experiencing or thinking or feeling, in a single image.
Although ‘The Eye of The Storm’ isn’t a representation of the pandemic for most, for me it’s all there, simply expressed, by a couple of people standing outside the post office.
The queue itself, ubiquitous, as all shops adhered to social distancing measures, the masked man clutching the amazon box due for return. The other man in front with his mask present but in-effective, the fact they are making an effort at social distancing but aren’t quite two meters apart. The advert behind showing a business in a state of pivot, selling their goods for charity to try and do their bit to fight the havoc wreaked by the pandemic and finally the bike memorial, the ghostly presence of a common death, lovingly adorned but also in a state of disrepair as the canyon of time widens between the memory and reality.