Photo: Green hills in spring, Briones Regional Park, Contra Costa County, California
Purchase Prints or License Usage. Image ID# – 200420sa_BA3-0264
When Things Change in the Blink of an Eye…
Well, here we remain: Stuck in a Pandemic-closed society. Here in California’s Bay Area — the first area in the nation to shut down — we’re now at the eight-week mark, with the first signs of societal reopening just starting to happen in the next few days.
Lately, we seem to be measuring life in two-week increments as we (collectively) assess or address the COVID-19 timeline. If you get sick, or you’ve been somewhere, you get put on a two-week quarantine. If you get really sick, two weeks is about how long a person might spend in an ICU room on a ventilator — and you better hope you make it through those two-weeks recovering, ‘cuz if you don’t… it might be your last two weeks.
Things like the initial Shelter-in-Place (SIP) orders that were a few weeks away back at the end of February became a reality that included our first signs of Pandemic Paranoia Shopping/Hoarding. When the SIP day finally arrived in mid-March, we were told it would initially be for two weeks. Within those two weeks, other areas in the country began to follow suit placing their own SIP orders into effect. Of course, when our first two weeks were up, we were told to stay at home for another two weeks. By the end of that next two weeks, the entire country had moved, state by state, to protect the public health under mandated SIP orders.
Sometimes it’s eye-opening to see just how much things can change over the course of a couple of weeks. I noticed this most recently with the natural progression of seasonal changes while walking among the green grassy hills of my local regional park. A sudden shift to warm, sunny weather brought forth the inevitable change back to the dried-out golden hills. This change happened in the blink of an eye… albeit, a two-week blink.
The photograph above was taken two weeks ago, and the image below I shot with my cell phone just a few days ago. The latter shot is looking up at the same set of hills from where I shot the first image.
A lot can change in two weeks.
I hope the re-opening of society and people getting back to work happens smoothly… and safely. But as much as I’d like to see ‘normal’ return, I think we need to accept the fact that keeping check on the pulse of this pandemic will likely be looked at anew every couple weeks.
In the meantime, I hope you all continue to stay safe and well. I’d love to hear how you’re doing these days, and would welcome your thoughts on re-opening society — but please, keep (your) politics out of any comments if possible.
Cheers,
– Gary.
PS: I was fortunate to be featured on a panel video-podcast about “Photography In The Age of Pandemic” on the Photographing the West Podcast. Click here if you’d like to access the Audio-only, otherwise, I hope you’ll check it out:
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Gary Crabbe is an award-winning commercial and editorial outdoor travel photographer and author based out of the San Francisco Bay Area, California. He has seven published books on California to his credit, including “Photographing California; v1-North”, which won the prestigious 2013 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Gold Medal Award as Best Regional title. His client and publication credits include the National Geographic Society, the New York Times, Forbes Magazine, TIME, The North Face, Subaru, L.L. Bean, Victoria’s Secret, Sunset Magazine, The Nature Conservancy, and many more. In 2018, The USPS selected a nearly-unprecedented seven of Gary’s photographs to become U.S. Postage ‘Forever’ Stamps as part of the O Beautiful collection. Gary is also a photography instructor and consultant, offering both public and private photo workshops. He also works occasionally as a professional freelance Photo Editor.
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