52 Frames: Line from a Song

I’m in week two of official Alachua County lockdown and, for the most part, people are staying inside, away from crowds, and not congregating in public places. As I take my daily walk every morning, it feels a bit like a ghost town: way less cars, no school buses, no kids. There are three schools and a park within a half mile of where I’m staying, so the absence of kids and their yells and bikes and all seems particularly noticeable.

So when the challenge for last week was unveiled as “line from a song” it wasn’t too hard for me to go with the line that has been running through my head for most of February:

We’re changing day to day, But tell me, where do the children play?

What illustrates this changed pandemic-infected world the most — to me so far — is the silence in the playgrounds.

The light was so bright, the sky so blue, it was a perfect day for children to be in the playground. But not a soul was there.

I used the Slow Shutter app on my iPhone to blur the motion of the foreground and I kind of liked how it turned out. But it didn’t quite capture the mood for me.

I went with my current standby for mood, black and white, but I felt it lost something in the translation there. Part of the contrast to me was the bright colors with the empty play equipment.

Slow Shutter is a bit challenging to use without a tripod if you set the shutter speed to more than 1/4 second. I took this one at 1 second, which meant everything in it was slightly out of focus. I liked that a lot, though, because it does feel like everything’s out of focus, slightly blurred, the future uncertain. So I bleached out some of the bright colors and went with this image for my submission.

It’s tough staying in lockdown, being isolated from family and friends, not going out to eat or kayaking in local parks. Photography during my morning walks is one way I keep myself mostly sane. And it’s inspired my April project, so stay tune for the unveiling of that on April 1st.