A CORONA DIARY - A STORY SO FAR........
I have never kept a diary. But beginning in March 2020 I decided to change that and create a visual diary that had just a few parameters. Choosing to shoot on a 1949 Leica IIIF with a 50mm and black and white film was not for aesthetics. It allowed me time to think. Each frame of a 36 exposure roll had to count. The home processing in the darkroom and negative digital dupe scanning filled out my time by giving me something else to do. Any frailties in my technical abilities as a photographer were ruthlessly exposed and simultaneously embraced.
Witnessing the combined effect of this virus and this lockdown on my parents, siblings, wife and children and chronicling it as honestly as possible was my only aim. It is not meant to be a polished set of images laid out in linear fashion, but instead a raw, rough around the edges scrapbook of how two families (mine and my parents) handled a global situation within the microcosm of their own home. How it changed us. What we learned about each other. How we coped.
Physical health, mental health, educational disruption, financial uncertainty, furlough schemes, mealtimes, family walks, arguments, zoom calls, worship, haircuts, letters from Prime Ministers, Queen's speeches, clapping for carers, VE Day, birthdays, super moons, comets and astronaut landings, hospital appointments, funerals, vaccines and more are all laid bare. The constant scrutiny under which my family have willingly subjected themselves to is the only reason these images exist. As a body of work it is solely created as an historical document of a momentous and probably never to be repeated year to pass down through the generations of family to come.