32

On March 16, Bay Area counties issued "shelter in place" orders. My days were suddenly long and busy as I worked to get my coworkers set up to work remotely. After two weeks of rarely setting foot outside the house, the need to escape, to get some exercise, and to make some photographs, led to long walks at night--a time when the streets were safely but eerily empty of cars and pedestrians.

During these walks, I would sometimes reach out to talk or text with friends as I walked by their homes. Sometimes we would stand at a distance or at an open window to lay eyes on each other. And as we anxiously talked, I eventually began experimenting with photographing them inside their homes, peering out into the darkness. The experiment grew into a series of over 80 portraits of friends, acquaintances, and ultimately strangers that explores and documents the range of feelings and reactions we had to the pandemic in the first few frightening months.

Neo Serafimidis

neo.serafim@gmail.com