Isolation Portraits - magazine
Yarra Valley photographer Suzanne Phoenix documents the impact of the coronavirus pandemic restrictions for people in the Upper Yarra with a series of isolation portraits.
Suzanne photographed over 30 households at their front gate or in their gardens, back yards, farm paddocks and even by the pool in line with social distancing rules.
Each household also wrote of their personal experience of self-isolation and this magazine features their own words, unedited alongside their isolation portraits.
This is the first edition in this series documenting the period from 18 April to 4 May 2020.
“Late in March 2020 Coronavirus, or COVID_19, entered the common vernacular of Australians. Our borders were closed and social distancing rules started, followed by the state government of Victoria closing “non-essential” services. The places we gathered including pubs, clubs, festivals and sports were shut down.
As a photographer usually documenting live music and performances, festivals, street photography and daily life my entire occupations ground to a halt. I spent the first few weeks in fear of who was going to die and every moment being consumed by the virus. Daily walks were a sanctioned luxury where I could go outside and be in nature. Along the way I met (at a distance) some very interesting folk and made some photographs.
I desperately needed to continue to create and this gave me the idea to ask locals if I could photograph them at their homes. Safety precautions and social distancing measures were kept so all photographs occurred with me outside and them at their front gate, in the backyard or in a paddock with their animals and just a couple through their windows.
The photographs were made between 18 April and 4 May 2020 in the Upper Yarra, an area of the Yarra Valley that finishes at the very edge of Greater Melbourne. It includes the townships of Launching Place, Don Valley, Yarra Junction, Gladysdale, Powelltown, Wesburn, Millgrove, Warburton, East Warburton, McMahons Creek and Reefton.
The households capture people just as they are in isolation, no one dressed up for their photographs. I am grateful for all those who trusted me to document their isolation portrait and shared in their own words the personal COVID-19 experience.”
Self-published 2020
Size: A4
104 pages
Signed and numbered edition of 100.
ISBN: 9781006894404
Collections:
Australian Queer Archives
National Library of Australia
State Library of Victoria
