About the Project
All these images were taken during the shelter-in-place order in New York City, at the peak of the Covid19 pandemic. The night offered a cinematic glimpse of the city plunged into one of its bleakest times. By losing its social purpose, the familiar landscape of the city’s bars, restaurants, intersections and squares, became unrecognizable. The empty streets transformed into a Hopperesque space of the ultimate night punctuated by lit windows and glowing streetlights. These few remaining sources of light offered a sanctuary against the alienating darkness, providing glimpses of domestic warmth and giving refuge to the lonely passersby, shuffling in and out darkness. Disoriented by the city I have called home for the last 20 years, I was reminded of a dystopian sci-fi film, Dark City, where a dreamlike metropolis is trapped in eternal nightfall. New York City has since returned to a semblance of normalcy, and those few weeks already seem to be a vision of another world.