Along Came Covid

A visual essay / Location: Downtown Los Angeles and Durham NC

2020 was an eventful year for all of us. Daily routines were disrupted due to job losses and national lockdowns. In March 2020, I was furloughed from my job in North Carolina and decided to spend my five-week break in Los Angeles with some friends. During this time, I took daily afternoon walks around the city with my camera, documenting this unusual moment in history.

The whole concept of lockdown felt so foreign to me. It was strange to see the streets of Downtown LA no longer as vibrant and lively as I had always imagined. The mask mandate was still very new, and it felt odd not to greet others with a smile and a hello—this gesture comes deeply from my Southern roots; we call it Southern hospitality.

I documented two different cities, yet the feeling was the same…

…It felt like a ghost town.

This set was captured on my favorite expired monochrome 35mm film.