2020 – the year which has created history. It has changed the way mankind functions. It has made us realise and cherish the basic necessities required to survive. The fast-paced world came to a standstill for a couple of months. There has been chaos, fear and sorrow associated with the pandemic as the scientists still try to discover a cure. On the other hand, nature got some time to heal, even if it was for a few months.
According to reports by media, a novel coronavirus was first detected in China around December 2019. It slowly started spreading around the world by mid-January 2020. On February 11, 2020, the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced a new name for the novel coronavirus – COVID-19. On March 11, 2020, COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by WHO.
India reported its first case of COVID-19 on January 30, 2020. Initially things were under control, but it started spreading rapidly around end-February 2020. On March 24, 2020, the Government of India announced a 21-day nationwide lockdown starting from midnight. Everything came to a standstill from March 25, 2020. On the morning of the first day of lockdown, we decided to start documenting the lives of people during the lockdown with one photograph shot daily in the morning, from our balcony on the second floor of our building.
After the first 21 days, the lockdown got extended thrice with the last day of the fourth phase of lockdown being today, May 31, 2020. We have continued our endeavour of taking one photograph a day through these phases of the lockdown as well. During the lockdown, on May 20, 2020, the state of West Bengal was also hit by super cyclone Amphan, leaving behind a trail of destruction.
With the Government slowly trying to exit the lockdown and normalise the situation, we have decided to close our series with the last post being made today – the last day of the fourth phase of lockdown. By trying to capture the lives of the people over these last 68 days, we got to observe the human behaviour closely – how people were initially scared of the virus, then started living with it and eventually came to mocking it. We even witnessed how life went on after the destruction of Amphan. And, we finally came across a lot of heroes – some with and many without uniforms.
We have purposely not given any caption to these photographs as we wanted to let the viewer interpret the story behind the photographs in their own way and not influence them with our thoughts. If anyone is interested to know the story behind any photograph you can write to us at connect@fofafifl.club and we would be glad to share it with you privately.
Once life returns to normalcy, we would like to put up the photographs shot during the nationwide lockdown in India for exhibition, the proceeds from which we plan to use to help the people whose livelihoods have been impacted because of the lockdown. We would be grateful if any of our readers would like to come forward and help us with the exhibition as we have little knowledge in this domain.
If you are interested in acquiring the rights to use any of the photographs that you see on this website, please visit our Shutterstock portfolio by clicking here.
The Gear We Used To Take The Photographs During The Lockdown
I have always been a Fan of your & Farah’s photography. A person has to be extraordinarily creative to capture such varied set of pictures, from a single window frame adjacent to that flyover. The series of glimpses give us an idea of various activities running during this lockdown. The local rickshaw-puller, the auto drivers, the sweepers, “the Bhaaris”, the army were all in action to serve the state, rather the Nation. An impeccable portrayal of these 68 days Lockdown through your lenses. Thank you.
Thank you so much, Suyesha! The photography is Shabbir’s and I am the writer, but we’re a team. ?
The most difficult part of this series was to remain patient and continue with it over the 68 days. It took a lot to motivate ourselves every morning to take the photograph, edit it and then post it, while rushing to sit for work and completing our household chores.
Such kind comments from you guys feed that motivation. Thanks once again.
– Farha