MARY ELLEN MCQUAY
Sheltering in Place
Sheltering in Place
If one can have a favourite phrase from the tangled and complex time of Covid-19, mine is ‘Sheltering in Place’.
Usually, in the early spring, when winter colours change to soft greens, yellows and reds, I wander conservation areas and lakefront beaches with my camera.
Somewhat pensive and solitary, I watch for images both intimate and curiously familiar. If those images suggest a human narrative, all the better. But that quiet quest didn’t happen this spring. The conservation areas and beaches were closed. Covid-19 kept most of us locked down at home.
The phrase “Sheltering in Place” continued to echo in my mind. It calmed me. Yet as the weeks rolled on and the pandemic spread, the layers bubbling beneath the calm surface of sheltering revealed themselves. Many felt exhausted, anxious and at risk - essential workers, multigenerational families living in cramped quarters and those isolated at home alone.
Not able to photograph in my favourite places I re-visited photographs I’ve made in years past. I searched for images that gave me a sense of the layers – the strength, the peace, the longing and the complexity - that may be embedded in the idea of sheltering that has touched us all.
June 2020
If one can have a favourite phrase from the tangled and complex time of Covid-19, mine is ‘Sheltering in Place’.
Usually, in the early spring, when winter colours change to soft greens, yellows and reds, I wander conservation areas and lakefront beaches with my camera.
Somewhat pensive and solitary, I watch for images both intimate and curiously familiar. If those images suggest a human narrative, all the better. But that quiet quest didn’t happen this spring. The conservation areas and beaches were closed. Covid-19 kept most of us locked down at home.
The phrase “Sheltering in Place” continued to echo in my mind. It calmed me. Yet as the weeks rolled on and the pandemic spread, the layers bubbling beneath the calm surface of sheltering revealed themselves. Many felt exhausted, anxious and at risk - essential workers, multigenerational families living in cramped quarters and those isolated at home alone.
Not able to photograph in my favourite places I re-visited photographs I’ve made in years past. I searched for images that gave me a sense of the layers – the strength, the peace, the longing and the complexity - that may be embedded in the idea of sheltering that has touched us all.
June 2020
Water Signs Tidal Currents
Water Signs Beached
Water Signs The Lake Variations
Water Signs Shorelines
Fluid Dynamics
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The Universe Within
Order Inside Chaos
People and Place
Pots and Pans_002
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Spinal Tap_009
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2012 Professional Women Photographers (USA) 36th International Exhibition, 2 honourable mentions selected by juror Mary Ellen Mark