Portraits From Isolation

Photographer Roger Moore has been recording families in lockdown in their gardens

- Paul Mackenzie

The way we dealt with the Coronavirus pandemic will no doubt the subject of much discussion in the months and years to come. Each government decision will be pored over and the impacts considered, but on a human level, the effect of the lockdown has varied from place to place and household to household.

Lockdown has been different for residents of a town center-terrace and for people in large houses with expansive gardens, but photographer Roger Moore has captured a cross-section of people and experiences with his Doorstep Portraits project.

His pictures reveal the common elements that have bound us all together during the lockdown – his subjects’ sense of humour shines through in many of the shots, as does their love for the people they have spent the time with.

In one a mother’s pride in her daughter, an occupational therapist at Blackpool Victoria, is obvious as they sit on the step of their Marton home. In another, two young women scream silently from the other side of a locked gate on a Blackpool alley beside their home. It’s a playful scream, but one most of us can relate to.

In other shots, children play while their parents look on – it could be anywhere at any time. But it wasn’t, it was in lockdown. Otherwise, the children would have been at school, the parents at work. If it were a weekend, they might be at the park, the beach or on a day-trip. But they’re not, they’re in their garden - the only outdoor space many families had access to for some weeks.