Friday the 13th of March, 2020. The Friday when I got told we’d be working from home until further notice. When we were all told to stay at home unless absolutely necessary. When the term, ‘Shelter in place’ became everyday language.
I understand that lockdowns are now almost universal and need no explanation but I am still amazed at how small and insular one’s world becomes during one.
Working from home, I would sit at my computer for hours and hours rotating between work and news sites. Discussions with my wife were dominated by the day’s ‘numbers’, how many infections, how many deaths. The ‘numbers’ growing each day, they both meant nothing and everything. It was all consuming.
Then, I noticed outside our window that Dublin’s pigeons were flying. In tight circles, small numbers of birds would wheel through the sky above our house. Desperate to photograph something, anything, I photographed them as they flew in ever lower circles until they disappeared into the trees.
Later as I examined the photographs I was intrigued by the distance and distrust the first images held. Perhaps the images conveyed my jealousy of their freedom as they soared above me or their lack of social distancing? Whatever it was, in my eyes, the small black silhouettes captured in my images hold an abstract alienness, distant, unknowable.
But as they returned, these birds above our deserted city, they became less and less alien. The mad rush of wings as they passed above me, the dipping circles underneath heavy grey skies, they became as much a part of my lockdown as the ‘numbers’ and Zoom calls.
These images capture little snippets of the cascade of emotions inspired by Ireland’s lockdown.
