Unprecedented times. Anyone else sick of that phrase? I know I am. Maybe I'm not sick of it. Maybe it makes me uncomfortable. These are unprecedented times, and that's just the way it is.
As a photographer and a filmmaker I have an irrational urge to document everything. Go on a trip? Documented. My dogs are doing something stupid? Documented. Everything around me inevitably gets photographed or filmed and shared with the world.
That's not as easy today as it was just one short month ago. We are in the middle of a global pandemic that shows little sign of slowing down. Stay home! Wash your hands! Don't touch your face! Essential outings only, as infrequently as possible.
So who's telling the stories? Who's documenting what life is like around the world right now? The media? Sadly local papers are dropping like flies due to their ad revenue disappearing almost overnight. TV news? Also no, there's so much going on with the actual pandemic that it's hard to cover anything else. Add politics to the mix and the stories on the ground, regular people like you and me, we get lost in the shuffle.
Last week I grabbed a couple of cameras and some telephoto lenses and headed out to shoot some portraits of people stuck at home. Proper social distancing, personal protective equipment, no stops other than the outside of people's homes. Harmless, but very important.
Important not only for the participants, I'm probably the first person they talked to in weeks, but important historically. Will people remember what this was like in 10 years? Or in 20? 30? Sure, it'll be on Wikipedia or whatever crowdsourced website we use to record history (that's a terrifying thought).
It's things like documentary photography and filmmaking that show what things were like on the streets and in people's homes (or a safe distance from people's homes). In wartime, during economic downturns, famine, documentary photography and filmmaking are vital.
There's been some chatter, especially in Canada, that photographers should avoid doing this type of work. I think that's absolute garbage. Should people be doing hundreds of “porchtrait” sessions over a weekend? Probably not. Should photographers and filmmakers be documenting daily life right now? Yes, 100% yes.
We have a responsibility to record history. We have the tools and the ability to tell the stories that aren't being told. Boarded up cities. Empty streets. People living apart like no other time in modern history. History must remember this. Our children's children need to see what the global pandemic of 2020 looked like through the eyes of real people.
Don't tell me to stop, because I won't.
Scott.