Echoes of the pandemic: photographs of a city in quarantine
Echoes of the pandemic: photographs of a city in quarantine
During the quarantine and thanks to the job I had at the time, I was one of the privileged few who were allowed to roam the city freely. With my nikon f5 camera with a nikon 28mm f2.8 lens, a tripod and a Kentemere 400 roll of film that my dear friend Daniel Caballero Zurita gave me, I went to experiment with long exposures, several seconds long, that could reflect what I call the echoes of the pandemic.
The echoes of the pandemic echoed through the empty streets of the city, reminding us of the presence of the invisible enemy lurking in the darkness. The lonely streets and deserted buildings looked like something out of a horror story, as if the city itself had been abandoned to its fate. The absence of sound and movement created an apocalyptic atmosphere, in which only the virus seemed to have a life of its own. The echo of fear and uncertainty spread like a plague, and no one knew when the end would be.
The photographs I present were taken in the heart of the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, in the midst of the pandemic that ravaged the world in 2020. At a time when quarantine had become the new normal, the streets that were once full of life and human activity were desolate and empty. Like an echo of the emptiness that took over the city, these images seek to convey the sadness and death that lurked around every corner. Buildings and avenues became a post-apocalyptic landscape, and the few passersby who ventured out became lonely figures amidst the desolation.
