down the rabbit hole

October 5th 2022

I've had an ambivalent relationship with social media platforms. Wilfully ignoring the social side but finding them useful as information and opinion sources (real and fake) and also ways of making work easily accessible. Following my fourth Living Lockdown book I had to admit the audience for more books on the pandemic was over - for the moment at least.

However despite the official end of pandemic restrictions in England in February 2022 there were still plenty of challenges for people and manifestations of those on the street. I decided to publish an image every day on Instagram as a retrospective photo diary from the start of the pandemic, catching up with the present day like a crazed toddler time machine, simultaneously careering backwards and forwards.

To be honest it is - guess what - an exercise just for me. I find it fascinating to step back just a few weeks to remember the news agenda at that point and how it so quickly dissipates as we're presented with the next new shiny distraction. It's just another way of paying attention. One skill we do need to keep practising.