This is rush hour on Saturday afternoon in Austin, Texas April 4th, 2020.
Few of us have lived through anything like this pandemic in our lives. Even us ancient ones who've been around (and through) a lot of weird and scary stuff. Many of the changes to our way of life are sudden, profound and bereft of precedent. We are truly living through a transformative and perilous period and it would be good to have a record of what it was like to be in the middle of this. I shy away from concentrating on the health care (immediate life and death) aspect of the crisis because it would be selfish to intrude when every medical professional needs space and full attention to work. And, selfishly, I don't want to put myself or my family and friends in great peril just to get photographs.
But the economic ramifications may end up being equally severe and we need a record of this time as well. The Austin History Center put out a request for images that document how Austin and its citizens are dealing with the pandemic. They have photos that go all the way back to Austin during the Spanish Flu in 1918 and good documentation of just about every major upheaval (or positive thing) that's occurred in our city. Now they want to make sure people know that they would welcome good images that tell the story of our responses and our sacrifices during this trying time.
I can't think that Austin is alone in this desire for documentation and a memory archive. I would think that the responses and the real life changes will be different for small towns and giant cities; for once thriving economies as well as communities already dealing with painful financial adversity. And it's obvious that this is not an "American" problem but a world crisis.
I put on my rain jacket and my face mask and went out for a walk this afternoon. I walked up one side of the lake trail which put me on the east side of downtown. I then walked through the center of town with the idea of documenting all the closed and boarded up businesses as well as the empty parking lots, empty hotels and empty streets. If I could go back in time about three months and show these images to people who live here they would never believe that downtown could be so bare. And I've not begun to document the lines outside of grocery stores and legions of normal people behind medical (and home made masks).
It's something to think about if you are home and bored and itching for a project that has real bones and real value. It's not just another Zone VI exercise with a running brook made smooth with a long exposure... We can only bear witness if we photograph the world around us. As HCB once said,
“The intensive use of photographs by mass media lays ever fresh responsibilities upon the photographer. We have to acknowledge the existence of a chasm between the economic needs of our consumer society and the requirements of those who bear witness to this epoch. This affects us all, particularly the younger generations of photographers. We must take greater care than ever not to allow ourselves to be separated from the real world and from humanity.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
Photography and video will form the cultural memory of this time. It's only by having lots of points of view that we'll aggregate a history that will tell the story.
It is obvious that there will be hard times ahead not just for people directly touched by the health effects and deadly fallout of the pandemic but by the severe and rapid closure of the economy. Young people's potential will be put on hold. Many businesses will fail and not re-emerge. There will be many sad stories to be told and the capturing and telling may help to inform future policies and decisions that will prevent the same kind of wholesale destruction in the next pandemic.
It's an idea and I'd love to get some feedback. I'm sure I'm missing a lot and haven't figured out entirely how to proceed, but I know photographers love projects and they love to tell stories. Please let me know your thoughts. Ethical considerations, etc. Here are the images I took today.
All the cafe tables gone. All the people scattered.
Menu monitors at Juiceland.
An un-manned Bank of America office.
Cafe Politique shutter behind a construction walkway.
No businesses open for blocks at a time. But it was nice that Loft left their lights lit.
2nd Street is usually packed with people heading to happy hours and early dinners.
Today everything is closed.
No cars and no guests at the W Hotel.
There are still some food businesses trying to make it with mobile ordering and
curbside pickup but one by one I'm watching them throw in the towel as it becomes
apparent that the cash flow out is unsustainable without a critical mass of customer.
I have never seen this parking lot vacant. Never.
Yeah. That's the GX8. I'll write about my experience with it tomorrow.
2nd Restaurant and Medici Coffee shop are closed up tight on Congress Ave.
And this is Congress Ave. at Rush Hour. No one is downtown.
Valet parking at the JW Marriott is boarded up and closed.
The hotel is not boarded up (yet) but it is closed down.
All the furniture and fixtures have already been removed from this corporate hotel restaurant.
The Royal Blue Grocery is now ---- particle board.
this is the location on Second St. Several others in the chain are still open
in downtown. The sell groceries. This one is near the convention center and further away from the residence towers....
Michaleda's tried takeout and then breakfast tacos and coffee and now they too
have boarded up the shop and gone dormant. They are right across the street from
the convention center.
Drop me a line and let me know what you think of the idea.
I'm going to flesh out my intentions for this and figure out how I will use and share the images in a way that's beneficial. If I figure that out I'll post about it.
Incredibly interested to hear how very small towns are dealing with this.
18 comments:
The WWII themed "We Can Do It!" poster reminded me of a take-off of it I saw in Budapest in 2018. :-) I don't know what it says, but it seems to be an advertisement poster for a magazine that shows the cover of one of the issues.
http://www.bakubo.com/Galleries%202/Hungary/slides/OLYD2478.html
I see your HCB and raise you Dorothea Lange
There are two different worlds -- the empty outdoors, where you spotted some of the signs to explain why things have shut down. Are there signs saying where the familiar resources have gone, and do they hope to return? But second is life inside, crowding, Zooming, trying to duplicate former family structures with internet links. The first is getting covered but I have seen little of the second. Here's one attempt to show a multi-family supper: https://flic.kr/p/2iGq9NK . Passover, coming up in a few more days, will be a real challenge.
Just this morning I got the same idea of capturing the change in our environment caused by the virus and photographed the queue in front of the ice cream shop in our village Almere-Haven the Netherlands where everyone has to wait for their turn in boxes of one and a half meters. You can find the picture on my blog sccollections .About the GX8. I had one but became crazy by the placement of the disp button. Everytime the display changed or disappeared. I gave up and now use the GX7 again and trade the GX8 in for a Fuji pro-2.
"Café Politique", great name.
In a thread over on LuLa, John Camp made a similar point, that photographers/journalists should be documenting this period. In my experience not many people read about or examine the past, but some do. We should leave them something to look at.
One effect, which is starting to hit home, is how many of our daily habits and rituals are elective, that is, we can do without them if we have to. I'm jonesing for a cappuccino and croissant from my favourite shop, but life goes on without.
Another thing that is hitting home is why we have constructed a culture where ball players and Wall Street hucksters make more money than god but scientific researchers have to spend half their lives begging for grants.
I just have no motivation to pick up a camera. And that is a brand new experience in my life, never ever having felt that way since the early 1980's when I went full time.
Perhaps it is the 24 years as a former full time photojournalist. Having been betrayed by the industry I believed I'd retire from and the response from the community and the country who viewed hedge-fund-induced contraction of the industry as our comeuppance for our (perceived) evil and bias that has killed my desire to document. I had my share of emotionally wrenching work and don't feel I have the head space to examine more. There may be a little bit of taking my toys and leaving the sandbox in there, yes.
Perhaps it's living in what a lot of America is, which is a post industrial community with common spaces, outside of big box stores, generally empty and in some cases already abandoned . Perhaps it's because the flood of imagery was already endemic that I feel I have no place for mine. No voice. No method of distribution/display that will be anything more than a fleeting electronic flurry of likes before it disappears.
Perhaps it's the lack of time. I don't have the same pull as others where they are looking for something to do. Getting food, managing the care of near and far 90 year olds, applying for unemployment, grants and loans to survive financially, taking long walks since the gym where a 40 minute workout was possible is closed and it's too early to cycle, doing a little bit of business work reaching out to clients ... Though structured, my days seem evaporate in a list of tasks which do include self care.
Before this started there were projects in the works. I was in one of the gaps after a ton of work had been produced and was finally delivered and billed. Then the usual lull hit as new work was under discussion and being formulated. A trip was planned to visit a friend down south and my gear was packed up and chained down in the super secret area while we're away from home. We saw the beginning of the pandemic on our shores a few weeks ago, cut our trip short, returned through an empty airport.
And there my gear still sits.
This has proven to be more of a time for reflection on myself and my career than a meditation on what others must know and see about our current struggle.
Wonderful pictures!
Kirk-I have not read your posts for a few days.
I have been busy sheltering in place with my wonderful wife, two young adult daughters and one young adult boyfriend.
Our kitchen table looks like a WeWork space!
But we are together and we are well and that is all that matters.
It is wonderful that you and yours are well.
I look forward to continuing to read about your good efforts.
I have been trying to walk and/or run on a daily basis, weather permitting.
I am now located in a borrowed house northeast of Boston.
We five left my New York City apartment nearly three weeks ago.
We just got up and left.
We packed for a two week stay.
We probably should have packed for a two month stay.
I am now discovering a new locale.
It too is deserted.
Perhaps I will do a drive around and see what I shall see.
Of course, I will be a camera.
Stay well.
And thanks for the positivity.
It helps.
Thumbs up.
Rob
Kirk, the idea of documenting is wonderful and there appear to be many photographers doing just that. Perhaps as a way to deal with this, I took a different approach and that is to photographs whatever catches my imagination as we walk each day for our dogs and exercise. I find that the images reflect my moods — I have gone from being expansive and exploring the outdoors (away from people, practicing good social distancing in a local park) to feeling tied to my home and not venturing outside. I guess, my approach is to document the changes in my mental state and emotions, as reflected by what “I am seeing and responding to.”
I love how you present this topic that has been on my mind since the beginning of this. How do we capture this in a meaningful way? In our current culture, the danger will be everyone forgetting about this ten, or maybe even five, years down the road. Through the visual arts we'll need to capture this in a manner that transcends cell phone snaps and Insta posts.
I've been doing that around Seattle for about the last month, when the mandated closings began. It's sort of a habit - in 1979, people couldn't understand why I was taking pictures of lines of cars waiting to get into filling stations. An emerging theme on the closed-for-business signs is "See you on the other side!", Dan Aykroyd's great line in the original "Ghostbusters" movie.
Photographing one of those little brooks to make the water look smooth was where I was yesterday and the rail I was on was more like what you would expect in downtown Austin than a woodland trail. There were groups of up to a dozen hikers that I had to wait to pass (and avoid getting close to), mountain bikers racing through, etc. I was a nice day and a weekend but still... Maybe I should have gone into town to walk.
When everybody, including the homeless, have smartphones, why do we need photographers to do the documentation? This isn't the Spanish Civil War, where there was a need for Gerta Taro.
What will be needed are regional curators for the plague photos. Search for #coronavirus, the photos are out there already. Also needed is a master website and editor, for the #coronavirus photos submitted by the regional curators.
Anonymous, Um...because we're photographers and that's what we want to do...? Bit of a high horse. I hope you don't fall getting down.
An Asshat in every batch.
You can nominate yourself to be the John Szarkowski of the plague, I prefer to be the Robert Frank.
That idea to document our current conditions briefly crossed my mind, too, but your e-mail has given it life. I plan to start to document my area here north of Atlanta tomorrow. One shot I have in mind is photographing the always jam-packed GA 400 highway at rush hour. Thanks for giving life and form to my fledgling idea.
Make sure to set your camera's time and date correctly, then keyword when you get home.
We have local historical societies that are good repositories of these images. I liked the suggestion about volunteering to assist in the curation later.
Thanks, Kirk.
Tom
Further to what the first Anonymous suggested about curation, allow me to suggest offering generous licensing terms on things you intend as "documentation of the plague" to allow for this kind of curation to happen with a laborious process.
Hmmmm. It seemed obvious to me that I was writing about donating the images to the Austin History Center, an organization which would then "curate" the images and archive them for future use. The "archiving and curating" are already being offered, what was being specifically asked for the the Austin History Center was content. Images. Videos. And stories.
So, curation already on tap. Archiving capabilities a proven deal. The expressed need? Content.
My intention is to respond to their need for visual content.
I am not a curator. I don't want to be a curator. I want to use my camera to create the content they are asking for.
I gotta snap pix of this Pandemic..
Hopefully I'll survive to celebrate in the Wold's Biggest Party..
Gear i always wanted may be next on bucket list..
I was born in South Africa, covering the massive changes rather than snap "rags"..
I certainly not around in 1918+ when Spanish flu hit!
Every area (called 'suburbs") of Johannesburg and all cities and towns,
have one specific lot/stand,on corner, vacant for "Mass Burial" .
Kept clean and grass mowed..
Constant frightening reminder..
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