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A Year Since Normal
Remembering the last few days of normalcy and the moment we realized the pandemic was about to hit
NPR host Lulu Garcia-Navarro posted a tweet this past week, which resonated with many of us. A year into this COVID-19 pandemic, she asked, “We all have #TheMoment when we knew things were going to be different. Where were you and what were you thinking a year ago?” A remarkable cascade of touching and emotional stories followed—all the more humanized when you could see familiar figures and friends responding to her question.
Lulu’s prompt certainly struck me because as a street photographer, I spent much of the first few months of the pandemic photographing everything on long walks to keep myself from going stir crazy and even making short-form videos about the impact of COVID-19 on the city, as well as more specific experiences related to the pandemic.
To think of a specific moment, though? … Yes. Yes, I could.
I’d been taking photos like this subway shot since early March, when so many of us were still going into work.
