Notes from the Pandemic: Chapter Two: (Not) Being There: (Not) Being There

W Hotel, Passeig del Mare Nostrum, Barcelona, Spain. May 2, 2020, 10:06:09 PM(Not) Being ThereIn 40 years of being a journalist, I’ve always been able to be there, to see for myself. Until the pandemic. For the first time, I couldn’t experience the world the way I always have – couldn’t make sense of it -- by seeing it and writing about it or photographing it. During the height of the global lockdown in April and May, I struggled to understand what the world looked like. Until I figured out a way to see it.“(Not) Being There” is the quintessential pandemic age/armchair traveler story. It is seen through the lens of dozens of live cams around the world. They were my “camera,” the only way I could see for myself what was happening; I used them to make photographs of a remarkably still and empty world. I “visited” towns and countries where friends live, and destinations on my bucket list; I visited places I know well, and places I’d never thought about or knew existed until I fell down the rabbit hole of live cams. I {quote}went{quote}  to Tokyo and Barcelona and Easter Island and Kathmandu. Times Square, Latvia, Graceland, Mykonos. I photographed a single turbine wind farm in Antarctica, a telescope in Hawaii, an empty beach in the Maldives, the Abby Road zebra crossing in London. I spent days in a coral reef aquarium and on an elephant reserve in South Africa. In the former, I blissfully practiced {quote}street photography{quote} as dozens of fish streamed by and across and into the live cam lens, and in the latter, I tracked big game all through the day and into the night, thanks to a park camera with infrared capabilities. I envied the worlds of the fish and the animals, envied their freedom from the coronavirus.I finished the work in mid-May; in one of those mood swings of these upside-down times, I simply no longer felt the urge to travel. The world was starting to open up. George Floyd was murdered. America burst into protests. Everything changed. Except the pandemic.
(Not) Being There

W Hotel, Passeig del Mare Nostrum, Barcelona, Spain. May 2, 2020, 10:06:09 PM

(Not) Being There

In 40 years of being a journalist, I’ve always been able to be there, to see for myself. Until the pandemic. For the first time, I couldn’t experience the world the way I always have – couldn’t make sense of it -- by seeing it and writing about it or photographing it. During the height of the global lockdown in April and May, I struggled to understand what the world looked like. Until I figured out a way to see it.

“(Not) Being There” is the quintessential pandemic age/armchair traveler story. It is seen through the lens of dozens of live cams around the world. They were my “camera,” the only way I could see for myself what was happening; I used them to make photographs of a remarkably still and empty world. I “visited” towns and countries where friends live, and destinations on my bucket list; I visited places I know well, and places I’d never thought about or knew existed until I fell down the rabbit hole of live cams.

I "went"  to Tokyo and Barcelona and Easter Island and Kathmandu. Times Square, Latvia, Graceland, Mykonos. I photographed a single turbine wind farm in Antarctica, a telescope in Hawaii, an empty beach in the Maldives, the Abby Road zebra crossing in London. I spent days in a coral reef aquarium and on an elephant reserve in South Africa. In the former, I blissfully practiced "street photography" as dozens of fish streamed by and across and into the live cam lens, and in the latter, I tracked big game all through the day and into the night, thanks to a park camera with infrared capabilities. I envied the worlds of the fish and the animals, envied their freedom from the coronavirus.

I finished the work in mid-May; in one of those mood swings of these upside-down times, I simply no longer felt the urge to travel. The world was starting to open up. George Floyd was murdered. America burst into protests. Everything changed. Except the pandemic.