In the course of one weekend, Danielle St. Laurent said the world around her seemed to come to a complete halt.
The weekend was March 13-15. The New Jersey -based photographer said she looked out her window and was floored at how the growing coronavirus pandemic had stilled her neighbourhood.
“On one of those days, I looked out my window and saw our neighbour’s son staring out his window for a long time at what seemed like nothing in particular,” St. Laurent told HuffPost.
As the quarantine went on, St. Laurent said she started wondering about the isolation kids were feeling.
“Never at that point did I think it would still be going on three months later,” she said.
St. Laurent, a mother herself, was fascinated by how families around her suburb of South Orange-Maplewood, New Jersey a state that ranks second in the country for known coronavirus cases were processing the isolation from others, “all while discovering a new intimacy among themselves.”
To capture the cocoon-like experience of quarantine, St. Laurent began taking photos of neighbourhood families looking out the windows of their homes.
“I put the word out to see if anyone I knew would be interested and also asked my friends to spread the word,” St. Laurent said.
Arranging the portraits wasn’t as simple as just stopping by and asking for a quick photo. Given most of the families’ hectic work-from-home and school schedules, finding the right time was usually a challenge.
“Every day felt like a marathon with all that,” St. Laurent said. “Even though we were all home all the time, it was still a challenge to coordinate schedules.”
Staying socially distant while talking to the families and directing the photos required some finesse, too.
“During the shoots, we would have to communicate on speakerphone or rely on hand gesture and lip reading as we were almost always separated by a pane of glass and distance, of course,” she said.
Shooting the photos from outside, looking into the families’ windows and inner home world, gave the portraits a haunting dreamlike quality. Each is a snapshot into the socially distant lives none of the families ever imagined they’d be living.
In interviews with St. Laurent, the parents talked about how they were adjusting. One mom, photography agent Pippa Mockridge, spoke about how each of her kids was struggling with the quarantine in his own way.
“Our 4-year-old says we can’t go to work because everyone is sick and a virus is ‘on,’” Mockridge said. “Our 7-year-old knows what’s going on. We have turned off the radio because it’s too much for a little guy.”
The parents also talked about the unexpected perks of being homebound, even if they were feeling cloistered at times.
Barbara Kwon, who was photographed with her husband, Michael Oliverio, and their two daughters, ages 4 and 2, told St. Laurent she was embracing the extra family time.
“I’m watching my girls really get to know and love each other,” Kwon said. “And we’ve become more resourceful and waste less food. Everything and everyone that is important to me are so clear to me now.”
There was one family in the neighborhood that was a little less keen on being photographed: St. Laurent’s own.
“I did photograph my family, actually; however, I didn’t include it in the series,” she said, before joking, “At this point, they are so tired of my pointing my camera at them, they tend to fight me and win.”
Scroll down for more of St. Laurent’s at-home quarantine portraits, and follow her on Instagram for more of her work .
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