Photography Project Documents Bridgeport During COVID

Bridgeport, CT - Last spring, when COVID-19 struck our area, two intrepid Housatonic Community College (HCC) photography students set out to document the city of Bridgeport. Their work provides an unsettling and authentic look at how Connecticut’s largest city appeared during that shutdown period, earning them a coveted exhibit on the Social Documentary Network.

After their careers at the Norwalk Housing Authority, Candace Mayer and Curtis Law studied at HCC for over a year on an Independent Study photography project. The two amateur photographers took courses regularly, each with their own style–Mayer favoring photographs that include people, Law preferring shots that are abstract.

Wanting their photography to advance beyond the still lives they typically shot, the pair began studying other photographers, analyzing their work, and emulating their style. With their passion for city planning, they began photographing Bridgeport. And then the pandemic hit.

“They said ‘we can’t photograph outside anymore because of the pandemic,’ and I said, just the opposite, photograph when no one else is photographing. Photograph an event,” remembered Janet Hayes, their photography professor.

From March to May of last year the photographers took hundreds of photos of Bridgeport, building a portfolio that was specific to the time and place. Through careful analysis of their work, they shot and re-shot their images, improving upon them until they had a distilled collection of work.

“We set out to document what the City of Bridgeport, Connecticut looked and felt like during the Governor's Covid-19 shelter-at-home order in spring of 2020. Abandonment, loneliness and isolation reverberated from the empty streets, sidewalks, stores, offices, restaurants and public spaces. Through these photographs you can walk these haunting streets during this unimagined time,” said Mayer and Law.

The pair began looking for places to show their street photography as a social documentary of COVID-19. Their work was accepted by the esteemed Social Documentary Network, which features more than 3,500 exhibits by nearly 2,500 photographers from all corners of the globe. The site offers an exceptional collection of visual storytelling of the world around us.

To view the exhibit, entitled ‘Bridgeport in the time of Covid 19’, visit https://socialdocumentary.net/exhibit/Candace_Mayer_and_Curtis_Law/5159