In Standby
In only a few days, the street view in Helsinki – as in many other capital cities – drastically changed. The COVID-19 pandemic swiped through the city, emptying its streets, local cafés, shops and other public spaces, creating a silent, almost ghostly atmosphere in the previously so lively corners of the city. Nobody knew this was coming and nobody knows when it’s ending.
The empty streets offered an entirely new perspective to approach the city and explore its current atmosphere. The lack of traffic, movement, sounds and distractions that we experience in our everyday life in normal conditions, almost takes the viewer back in time to another era, where everything was simpler, calmer and quieter. It gives an opportunity to focus on details that otherwise might have been left unnoticed.
This photographic series has aimed to capture the silence, stillness and the waiting feeling of the Helsinki street view during the first weeks of isolation.
