My wife Liz and I spent “Lockdown” in Dubai. At the peak, we spent almost 3 weeks in our Villa. We were only able to leave with a Police permit. These were only issued for supermarket visits every 3 days, or for urgent medical visits.
No one knew how the pandemic would end. It was hard to see where it was all going. I didn’t realise it at the time but the images that I made for Roots and Routine recorded our very own love story.
One of the by products of Lockdown was a disconnection from family. Tools like Skype and Zoom became the only way to stay connected.
It just seemed appropriate to use my Father’s Spectra Polaroid camera to capture the experience. I used the last of the film (Polaroid have discontinued this film type), and then I used the last of the Fuji FP100C on my Mamiya. It wasn’t as though the end of the world was coming, but this did seem to match a huge change in the world.
As “Roots & Routine” began to come to life, I began to think about turning this series into a book. After many edits, I had a limited edition of three books made.
It quickly became apparent that while life in Dubai had moved on, the covid nightmare was still having a major effect on people’s lifes in other parts of the world. Routes & Routine was still striking a raw nerve and that wasn’t part of the narrative. So, this project remains parked and will be dusted off in the future.
Six of these images were selected for display in Silvergrain Classic’s Docupan exhibition (see https://silvergrainclassics.com/en/2020/05/the-docupan-project/).