Mask Nation
A city with no faces
Recently I have been asked how or if the pandemic, the Covid-19, the coronavirus, changed my approach to my photography.
It changed it, yes it did.
As a lover of street photography, the candid shot universe, the pandemic kind of laid down a blanket on my work, a blanket that covers one of the most important part of the body, at least for me, at least for what I love to look at and freeze on the camera sensor.
It all started back in 2020, and I still clearly remember it was a day in February when I posted a photo, a simple post with a photo with a few written lines, a feeling of the moment.
I think most of us at that time, were still wondering if the so called “coronavirus” was going to disappear in a few weeks or months.
But it did not. Few weeks later it became a world pandemic.
I still remember that day, not a special photo, but with something very different on it.
When I published it, then I wrote a few lines, I wrote something that made me sad in that particular moment and I could not imagine at that time, that after more than one long year, nothing changed.
17th February 2020
“It has been days since the last time I saw a new face. Instead, what I see now are rows upon rows of faces hidden behind a mask.
Don’ t let Hong Kong become a city with no faces.”