28 Days Later – Finding Light in Lockdown
When the world stopped in April 2020, I did what I always do when things feel uncertain – I reached for my camera.
What started as a way to pass time became 28 Days Later — a collection of photographs documenting our first month of lockdown. The title borrowed from that zombie film, but there was nothing apocalyptic about what I found through my lens. Just life, stripped back to its essentials.
Those early weeks were surreal. Days melted into each other without the usual anchors of school runs or weekend plans. But as I wandered around our house with my camera, something shifted. I started noticing things I'd been too busy to see before. Morning light spilling across the breakfast table. The kids creating elaborate blanket kingdoms in the sitting room. The profound quiet of empty streets outside our door.
None of it was Instagram perfect. There were tears, tantrums, and way too much screen time. But that's exactly what made it beautiful – it was completely, utterly real. No posing, no staging, just us figuring out how to be together 24/7 in a way we'd never had to before.
I've always believed photography is about preserving memory, but this project taught me something deeper. These weren't just pictures of a strange time – they were proof that even when the world felt like it was falling apart, we were still finding ways to laugh, to connect, to be human.
Looking at these images now, I'm struck by how they capture something I'd almost forgotten: that sense of slowing down, of being present, of making the ordinary feel extraordinary simply by paying attention to it.
In many ways, those 28 days reminded me why I became a photographer in the first place – to document the real moments, the in-between bits, the life that happens when we're not performing for anyone else. Just being ourselves, exactly as we are.
