Face mask curse
How a face mask in a photograph might be too timely, or too much of a reminder linked to the pandemic, banishing photos with them to the archives forever.
Alo!
Given all this chatter about the Hantavirus, and some worrying familiar flashbacks to spring 2020, I was thinking about the photography of the pandemic, and during the pandemic. Like all news imagery, it’s a record of history, a moment in time. But, it’s also true that any photograph with someone wearing a mask now seems repellant.
MASKS! MASKS! MASKS!
Are all images where there’s a face mask in shot doomed to be banished to our archives and lost forever? Most photography has both an element of timelessness, and a very precise timely nature. The pandemic mask wearing continued for years, and I’ve seen plenty of people continuing to wear them on the metro today, nobody wants any more of any lurgy. 😷
Why are we now dismissing these images? Are they too time period specific? Even if the photograph and the topic has nothing to do with the COVID19 pandemic, any photograph with face mask wearing people seems to ignite that part of our brains that says, “nah, thanks, don’t want to remember that shit show again”. Maybe they’re too specific? It was a rare event, as something that impacted our entire planet simultaneously, we all lived it, and are living its repercussions.
I think not seeing any of these stock images is a bit of a loss. 2020-2022 were hugely transitional years, they were the last periods before widespread A.I., before everyone went a little bit cuckoo, and a time when we all had more time for introspection and/or existential crisis.
A agree the above photos are a tad bleak, but that was the world for more than a couple of years.
My argument isn’t that I want to see more photos from the pandemic period per say, it’s more that I hope they will be able to emerge from their cocoon, survive off the archive hard drives, and not be tainted and emotionally strangled by our pandemic experiences. They are boring, they are samey-samey, but that’s what it was like, and people still wear face masks today, so hopefully those won’t too be afflicted by the curse of the face mask in photo, whenever they were taken.
Give it some thought next time you see someone wearing a face mask in the street, or in the background of a photo.
Your links 🔗 and food for thought 💭 …
Love this series by Jonas Bendiksen on our addiction to our phones.
Interesting piece on American propoganda leaflets dropped during their wars in The Guardian. If nothing else, the visuals are iconic, as well as bizarre.
The 2026 ‘State of the photography industry’ survey is out, make of it what you will.
Megha Singha photographs Mumbai’s influencer culture.
Bravo humans - how our species invented booze long long before the wheel.
Take care, and happy clicking :)
B x
The best piece of Covid art I’ve seen recently was a guy who created a video of livestreams of the most popular tourist sites in the world empty in April 2020