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Picture a pandemic: how Guardian photographers adapted to lockdown life

This article is more than 3 years old

Our photojournalists explain how the pandemic has changed their practice – and why physical distancing is no barrier to producing intimate portraits

Fiona Shields, head of photography

Throughout the pandemic it has been important to show our readers and viewers what’s happening in the world outside, to make a historical document and to chart the progress of those on the frontline. During the first weeks, it was difficult to gain access to hospitals to see how they were coping – until photojournalist Jonny Weeks was invited on to the Covid-19 wards at University hospital in Coventry. We made a full risk assessment, considering his safety and the risk to those around him, and with the guidance of the staff there he produced a brilliant photo essay. He was one of the very first photojournalists to have this kind of access in the UK and it was a key story for the Guardian.

Photographing people through windows, in outside spaces or from the end of their front path has become an accepted feature of this time, like physically distanced queuing at the supermarket. It’s remarkable how inappropriate photo-stories made before the pandemic now feel. Seeing people in crowded places such as music festivals, or people going to work – a time before face masks – has quickly become dated. Like our vocabulary, our visual language and practice has changed, for now. 

Piccadilly Circus at seven o’clock on Saturday evening, empty, with the street lights and illuminated buildings glowing.

David Levene, photographer

We’d all seen images of lockdowns in Italy and Spain and so had a good sense of what was to come. It was clear that the streets of London would fall empty and silent that first morning of lockdown on 24 March. In normal times I would have tried to find high positions to shoot down from but I knew that would be impossible. So I bought a giant monopod online, which thankfully arrived on the 23rd. The thing goes as high as a house with the camera popped on top, which I control using a smartphone down below. So I spent the first few days of lockdown wandering around with it flung over my shoulder, able to shoot desolate London scenes from above within moments from any position. The light was incredible during those first days and weeks, which only increased the sense of urgency to be out there shooting as much as possible. It felt like we were witnessing something unique in our history, which demanded thorough documentation. The days were long and I found it impossible to relax. Even when I got home I felt like I should be back out there photographing. I’d watch the skies from my garden and felt pangs of regret if I saw dramatic clouds developing, sure in the knowledge that I was missing some momentous, empty London streetscape.

Skyline and bare trees at dusk reflected in the back window of a car.

Sarah Lee, photographer

I went into an early lockdown because my partner is shielding. But you can’t “work from home” as a photographer, so I started taking long walks around my home district, Camden. I’ve lived in this part of London for over 15 years, but having all this sudden time to walk and think and really look in a way I’ve never done before gave me a new perspective. I noticed light, details, and stark beauty in places I’d never seen carefully before. It was strange to do this work and to feel people were only distant, fleeting presences on the periphery of my attention. But that’s how the early weeks of lockdown felt.

I’ve worked for the Guardian and Observer for 20 years now, but I also do commercial work – one of my last big jobs before locking down was a Transport for London campaign that is currently decorating a transport network I can’t use – and personal work. I’m the sort of photographer who always carried my Leica with me and usually I don’t see the distinction between paid commissions and my own work. Photography feels like a vocation as well as a career.

Fears about the virus meant that for those first two months I didn’t take my camera with me when I went on my rather limited walks. It felt like a possible mode of infection; an object I constantly touch and then bring to my face. It’s the longest I’ve gone in my adult life without my camera and without photography. It’s been very painful and difficult.

Also I desperately missed, and continue to miss, the human side of my job. I enjoy the huge privilege of meeting so many disparate people and having the unique, brief insights into their worlds that being a photographer usually brings on a daily basis. I realise now more than I ever have before how these daily encounters give meaning to my life and also provide all the sparks that fire both my creative energy and my personal energy. Without that, life is flatter.

I did quite quickly realise that I had to continue taking photographs even if I wasn’t working and wasn’t able to use my “proper” camera. I did a series taken on my long walks round Camden.

As the rules have loosened a little and I’ve grown braver on my bike, I’ve visited friends outside their homes or in their gardens, and for the past few weeks I’ve returned to my proper Leica. My work is always about intimacy and connection, and as I’ve gradually started to take photos with people in them again, I’m glad to see that side of my creative personality coming back.

Going forward, though, I am extremely apprehensive. Photography is a competitive, anxious profession to be in at the best of times. But at the moment I feel I’m trapped inside an airless glass box, where on the outside there are signs of the world coming back to life tentatively and old connections being renewed. I worry I’ll have my nose pressed to the glass till we are safe with a vaccine.

My biggest challenge, apart from keeping my four-year-old entertained, was getting my parents repatriated from India, which we eventually managed to do. Both are thankfully safe and well.

After a couple of weeks of lockdown work was very quiet, I was getting itchy feet and was desperate to take pictures. We were encouraged to think of stories to photograph safely that we could contribute to the paper. I decided to go to Slough, where I grew up, and photograph the local Asian volunteers who were helping the wider community. I would follow the volunteers in my own car and take pictures of the vulnerable people receiving the donations – all photographed at a safe distance. The volunteers felt very valued when they appeared in the national newspaper and even more so online, viewed by an international audience.

Before the lockdown I would mostly shoot in studios with lights and a crew of assistants – makeup artists, PRs and so on. Since lockdown, I have been working solo and most of the portraits have been shot outside. I have sometimes set up a mini-studio with a background in people’s gardens: luckily we had pretty good weather. I must say I have actually enjoyed working this way, keeping things as simple as possible, just me and the subject.

  • Elizabeth on Clacton-on-Sea beach, for an Observer piece about lockdown.


A man in a wheelchair being wheeled out of hospital past applauding staff.

Jonny Weeks, photographer

  • Andrew is clapped out of the hospital after spending more than two months there fighting Covid-19.

In the early days of lockdown, I was frustrated by the lack of coverage from within UK hospitals. Compared with what we were seeing and reading from Italy and the US, we knew very little of our own NHS. For me at least, this meant I had very little concept of the everyday acts of heroism being performed by NHS staff and I really didn’t have much of a clue what I was clapping for during “clap for carers” on Thursday evenings. I felt detached. I approached University hospital in Coventry, where I was born, and was lucky to be granted exclusive access to cover every aspect of their amazing work.

In doing so I was able to document many members of staff and their personal contributions – nurses and doctors in ITU, cleaners and charity workers on the wards. It was a huge undertaking and, given the number of deaths and the lack of access for family members, a story that had to be handled very sensitively. It was also a challenging assignment because I felt a weight of responsibility to my subjects and I was shooting in conditions that were frankly alien to me (trying to take documentary photographs while wearing PPE is not easy). Fortunately, the feedback was overwhelmingly positive: people valued the unique insight the story provided, they were comforted by the many positive stories that emerged from the tragedy of the pandemic, and they recognised that we had fulfilled our duty to our readers as a newspaper. It showed me that honest, respectful journalism can be immensely powerful. And I was quite chuffed at getting five pages of my work in the paper, too!

  • You can read our Global Development series Photographing the Pandemic, here.

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