Again?
In March 2020 I wrote a piece in response to what downtown Boston looked like as we were shut down. I called it "Ghost Town".
https://nealrantoul.com/posts/ghost-town
Well, here we go again.
Omicron has put us right back into submission, freaked out to be out, worried about being too close, and seeing those around us getting the virus, more so than last year, less severe though it may be.
Staying home more, working from home more. The only difference I can see is that no government is telling us to shut down. We are doing it on our own.
In our third year......
Again, just as then, I wish you good health.
Related series
Boston, MA 1983
In the summer of 1982, I began to work with Kodak's black and white infrared film in the 2 1/4 inch format. The film only came in 150 ft rolls as a 70mm aerial film. Although the image size was the same as 120mm film, I had to buy a 70mm bulk loader, special cassettes, a 70 mm film back, a special negative holder and even new 70mm negative sleeves. What all this enabled me to do was to make larger prints from this 70mm film, as the 35mm film I had been using would get grainy and soft at anything larger than 11 x 14 inches. The original prints of this series were sepia-toned and about 18 inches square.
In the process of trying to work out all these logistics, I would load film, go to downtown Boston and walk the streets, pointing up with the back of my camera loaded with the 70mm infrared film.
These pictures were the result.
The lineage of this work includes many shows, including a one-person exhibition at Boston City Hall in 2010.
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