Across the globe, Lockdown has been a new experience for all of us - irrelevant of age, gender or race. Parents have tackled educating their children, we've stuck to our one hour of exercise a day, have run errands for those in need and have completely changed our routines in an attempt to support our health systems and keep our nations afloat.
Not only this, but our surrounding environments have also utterly changed as well. More of us have enjoyed the blissful quiet where the constant noise of traffic has been drowned by the beautiful singing of birds. Some of us have noticed how nature has had a new lease of confidence where creatures have been bravely approaching us. And many of us can agree that the utter quiet of our towns and city centres have made us feel like we have been transported into a ghost town.
Someone who has perfectly captured this period in our lives is photographer Nick Jackson. Born and raised in Lancashire, London-based Jackson specialises in cityscape, nature and landscape photography and has won 50 international photography awards. In this article, Jackson tells us how he came to taking these memorable shots of London in Lockdown.
Nick Jackson’s London in Lockdown Story
"On one of my exercise hours in early April, I decided to go for a bike ride. Cycling up through Westminster towards Soho and Chinatown, I was amazed to see completely empty streets: no cars, no people. As I stood in the middle of the road on Westminster Bridge, it felt like a scene from a horror movie. Trafalgar Square - empty. Chinatown - empty. Piccadilly Circus - empty."
Mural in photo: Carnaby Street in Lockdown
"I shoot a lot of night photography in London and even in the earliest of hours I've never seen the streets so quiet. It felt a little uncomfortable to be out there with a camera so I didn't stop anywhere for more than a few seconds to grab some documentary shots and move on."
Mural in photo: Covent Garden in Lockdown
"That first day I cycled for an hour through all of the iconic places in Central London I could think of, stopping my bike in the middle of what would've usually been a busy main road to take a photograph. I deliberately focussed on places which would never normally be empty."
Mural in photo: Leadenhall Market in Lockdown
"The next day I went out again. I wanted to cycle the roads, usually so busy, noisy and polluted to see what they were like. Again, I saw a vacant capital. I could stop in the middle of Oxford Circus crossroads and see no traffic in any direction or cycle down The Mall towards Buckingham Palace and not encounter a soul. These were the places where only a few months earlier, shoppers would queue in their thousands and tourists would snap images on their phones."
Mural in photo: Notting Hill in Lockdown
"I'm really glad I managed to take these photographs as I hope this will be the last time the streets are so empty."
Mural in photo: Covent Garden Tube Station in Lockdown
Jackson's work is a small snapshot of our time during Lockdown and as a result, has captured this period in history perfectly. Many of us will hopefully never have to experience London this way and that it will soon go back to the lively city that it once was. With these recorded images of Lockdown, we hope to show future generations what it was like to live through this time of uncertainty and more importantly, how we overcame it.
If you want to see the whole of the London in Lockdown collection, take a look at Nick Jackson’s selection of photograph murals.
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