Isolation Projects Revisited

'Quarantine' 9x12cm paper negative on Ilfospeed grade 2 RC paper

In my post Isolation Projects, written five months ago, I described in detail an ongoing series of photographs, simply titled 'Quarantine'. These were paper negatives, shot each day, of the tree outside my window. At the time, I wrote that the project had a definite start, and that some UK-wide restrictions were being eased then, at the start of June. Since then, more restrictions were eased in July, then there was the 'eat out to help out' scheme; in September and October schools and colleges reopened for in-person teaching (schools had been open all through the height of the restrictions for vulnerable children and those of key workers of course); since then the number of coronavirus infections have begun to increase rapidly and new restrictions are in force. Currently, London, where I live, is in 'tier 2' the second highest or strictest measures. I continued taking photographs for the 'Quarantine' series each day all through the summer, unsure when there would be a logical point with which to end the series.

'Quarantine' 9x12cm paper negative on Ilfospeed grade 2 RC paper

In the previous post, I described the considerations of using different papers, mostly in terms of graded against variable contrast papers, finding that a light green filter effectively gave Ilford Multigrade paper sufficiently lower contrast to record both highlight and shadow details in most lighting conditions, as grade 2 paper unfiltered generally achieves (the difference between bright sun and overcast days is still quite marked). I have persisted since then in the routine of taking two photographs each day, one on old Ilfospeed grade 2 paper, one on Multigrade IV (it seemed prudent to shoot two photographs, rather than just one each day, for insurance). Currently, I have every intention of continuing the series for the time being; although the 'isolation' of the title of my previous post became more theoretical than actual during the later part of the summer, it still feels appropriate to the act of taking photographs of a small slice of the world outside through a window each day, and 'Quarantine' is appropriate enough as a title (I did consider that the project should initially last the 40 days that the word quarantine is derived from, but at the end of that time, restrictions were still strict-relatively speaking, in comparison, other countries were far stricter-so I continued the photographs; since then I have personally had two periods of self-isolating as a precaution in the last two months). Reflecting on the experience of having passed six months of this particular project, I've written a post for the Undertow Research blog here.