I fall in love with my city each year as Spring approaches.
When the days get long enough for me to take some pictures, it's like I finally have a way of paying proper attention to all the details around me.
Over the long winter we New Englanders keep our heads down and our hands in our pockets, and the streets are something to navigate and get through. We don't want to notice things. We just want to get home.
But Spring is a rebirth. A time for taking pleasure in the ordinary and remembering how grand it can be.
However this Spring is different. There's a virus in the air, and everyone's been told to stay home. That doesn't bode so well for my style of street photography, which is to get up close with a wide-angle lens and hope for the best.
On the other hand, I'd like to tell you that this is a ghost town. That the streets are deserted. That I've seen nought but zombies and paramilitary soldiers. Everyone wants to live in a movie, I suppose. And the fun thing about this virus is we're supposed to self-quarantine. We can stay home and watch the movie unreel on the news while simultaneously living it.
In truth, things are, like, a little quieter than usual. But not really that different. We've still got to sit on trains and crowd around construction zones.
Kids are still going out for coffee and snacks.
And I've only seen two face masks; the one that led this story, and this more festive pussy face.
Shelves in the convenience stores are a little light, but despite the over-hyped network news, people are stocking up with reasonable purchases.
And while there might be a little more "social distancing" than usual...
For the most part things are fairly relaxed.
It's funny. I could walk through the middle of a crowd and tell you things were booming here, or I could hold back for 30 seconds and tell you, "Yeah, Boston's dying. Nobody's going there now with this virus and all." The truth would be somewhere in the middle.
As far as Steemit goes, I'm still confused about whether to post this to a community, or my blog. There's half a dozen communities with "Photo" in the name; none have more than five subscribers. Maybe I should join one and contribute? Maybe I should start one of my own? "Candid Pre-Pandemic Street Photographers of New England"? Anyone? Like and subscribe? Donate to my Patreon?
I think I'll just stick with the blog for now.
All of these pictures were taken in the past two days. I'm especially pleased with the light in this final photograph, with the small cluster of people descending to the empty platform.
I'm gonna follow them down and try not to worry too much. But I'll still wash my hands.
Unless otherwise stated, photography is the work of the author. Feel free to copy, remix and share photographs from this post according to the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution Sharealike 4.0 International license.
Camera divider and signature illustration by @atopy.
If you'd like to read more, you can check out a categorized catalog of my posts on Steemit here.
Hahaha the community we have ALL been waiting for!
Hey Winston, nice to see that everything is normal, life is going on just fine 😘 I like your journalism!
Ahhh, your photography is a breath of fresh air. Oopos, I mean 😷. Yay emojis on steempeak! Something about those candids of strangers, I really like it. Plus it does take balls to shoot the general public. Things can get awkward when taking pictures out in the crowd, quickly, even during normal times (quote/unquote). A benefit of toxic masculinity? Reading your posts is much better than watching the news anyway.
So glad you like them! You know, I used to get so nervous and now I don't even notice it. And nothing's more fun than a good candid photo with eye contact, so I've started experimenting with wearing a hat and smoking my pipe to capitalize on the friendly-daft-old-buzzard look. I find that people tend to glance my way more often, but they never notice the phone.
How are your art projects coming along?
Get in a game of Frisbee golf yet this year?
Work it, girl! I would look at you too, probably. Now I wonder I have already been captured and not even noticed the person behind the camera.
Thanks for asking. Art things are going well. I have been pushing myself to move outside my comfort zone to improve my foundation skills and I'm considering what the next level is for me. Since I moved during my last steem break, I have a lot more room and freedom to make what I want. (I went from staying in a bedroom at someone else's house to an entire house with no roommates). The hardest part now is deciding what to create! So many ideas and options to choose from, it's freaking awesome.
As for the golf, no. Last October the shop where I work was partially destroyed by a torndado. We are a small business with limited resources, and needless to say, things have been absolutely chaotic ever since. The demo of our old shop is supposed to start soon and and we are waiting to find out about a new shop. The weekends are for home maintenance projects (the "new" house is almost 90 years old), chores, errands, and so on. It's pretty rare we go out for "just for fun" anymore.
The life of a normie, eh? Enjoy your weekend, thanks for the chat, it means a lot 🤜🤛👋