My longest summer ever – documenting this horrifying year 2020.
At morning I accidentally noticed that today is the last day of September. And due to the overall temperature, weather, and feeling – September still feels like summer here in Israel. Well, this summer was long. Too long. Never in my life, I had such a long summer like SUMMER 2020. I also added less hot April and May and got these 6 long months of the Covid-19 craziness, that changed our lives forever. I mixed this post with the images taken during these 6 months with different kinds of activity, not too varied due to the current situation – the isolation, the quarantine, the second quarantine, the limited movement, the limits in gathering, closed cinemas and theaters, and the absence of live music performances, parties, jam sessions. Somehow, i was very lucky to attend a few rock’n’roll events and the “Balfour protests” filled my free time and released free energy.
With the first quarantine I found myself enjoying taking photographs of the empty streets with here and their frightened people in masks. These exotic from the first sign masks were interesting subjects to photograph, but with time they became a norm and this fact especially upsets me. I photographed every single day – the strangers, co-workers, friends, and my family. One of the great ideas I released this summer was printing some of the portraits of people I met during my short walks and bringing them the printed hardcopy of their black and white portraits with the masks, sometimes without, depending on the situation and the place where we met.
The effect of holding in hands these printed photographs was very different from person to person – some of them frankly let me know that they have nothing to do with these prints, but most of the people who got these images, were absolutely happy, and some of them even in kind of a shock because of this forgotten feeling to have their portraits in their hands.
Another great “project” I started and still not finished – is a “Quarantine in village” zine. I finished all the pages, designed well everything, but stopped when saw the Blurb books and zines shipping prices. Another reason why the project was stopped, there was a feeling that it would not be interesting to anyone, because we all had the same feelings at the same time, so I lost interest to create another zine with the same images of loneliness during another lockdown. Right now we are in the middle of the second lockdown, and the feeling is different, maybe I got used to this silly isolation, limitations, and boundaries? Is it possible to lose the feeling of how it was some time ago? Without masks, isolation, and the social distance from each other. I don’t know why they call it social if it’s just physical. I miss hugging my mom, I have not done this for half a year. Is it really possible to get used to this?
Now the photographs. This time I will publish much more than usual and really hope that most of you will be patient enough to go through the mixed long series. Maybe with this amount of images, I will able to express my longest summer ever. The bands i was happy to see, to listen and to take pictures of them are :
Muna Camuna, Love Your Witch, The Great Machine, Soul Kitchen, King Balfour, and Dan Ezra with Luna and Stav.
Wow.. Victory these are great history shots! We will not ever forget! and yet! still not over yet! Shots and reading your blog is always inspires me.
Thank you, Naomi. You’re right all this craziness still continues and just enters another spin with much more stupidity.
Oops my apologies. Victory is.. I meant Victor! Ohh Hope for the victor Victor!
the sadest picture is definitely the one of the guy in the take-away restaurant showing a picture of himself without the mask that it became ordinary so quickly for us all. the most disturbing i find the picture of the distorted building: a perfect metaphor for the groundshaking desease the whole world is suffering. and as it goes with earthquakes … even solid things made for 1000 years get destroyed. if we ever wake up from this the world would have been changed for ever. thanks for this documentary. i hope you will make a book out of it one day when we are ready to put it to our archives …
Hey Trillian. Glad to hear from you. It took an hour to go through all the photographs I took during these 6 months, i missed some series, but i got enough for one post, even more than I wanted. About this guy and the Hummus place near my living place where I photographed his portrait as many portraits of his co-workers during the lockdown. I brought them my printed images and they made a gallery on the wall, plus continued photographing each other and printing the images – now this is a big gallery containing half of my BW photos and another half of their colorful. A week ago they asked me to photograph some more and even to shoot a selfie with 4 of them together with me, 🙂
The last image is exactly my feeling such great explained by you, darling! I’m thinking about the book.
Lovely series (if I may use this word). Bizarre times for us all for sure and you have documented it very well. I hope you finish your zine Victor. I often think and question the decision to publish or share something but we must remember – the first and only person you’re doing it for is yourself.
Harsh as it may sound, nobody cares about your photography unless You do. And it’s great to see the final product of your work. I know, Blurb’s shipping fees are pain in the arse and I’m currently just sitting and waiting for special offer to appear on their site. I have 10 days to do so and then I must publish regardless… I’m feeling good about finishing it and it’s all that matters. I don’t expect any sort of income from it…
Hey Yuri ! so agree with saying by you – “the first and only person you’re doing it for is yourself.” Exactly why we are doing photography – not a business and a massive international Exhibition and challenges. And I always say that the photographers who don’t win in these challenges they are not less good, they just don’t take a part in 🙂
Today i got an email from Blurb about their 48 hours 25% off.
I will wait for your zine as well 🙂
Hi Victor! Great post and photo documentary about this new world we live in. I have documenting too but my photos are not nearly as nice as yours!
Great and enjoyable photography Victor and on a incredible topic and year for all of us. Nice to see images from a place I once spent many months (1990s) and would have been visiting in 2020 but not for obvious reasons! Looking forward to my next visit.
Hey Peter. Great to hear from you. 1990 is even before my arriving to Israel. 2020 is crazy full of nothing and full of everything. i can’t say that i love it but some changes we got through are very important for our society.. but yes many changes are superfluous. thank you for the kind words.