La Vie en Rose: Pandemic Escapism
I know, I know. This title, it’s a terrible cliché. This song is played in every American film set in Paris. I know it's overplayed, but Edith Piaf has a special place in my heart. I spent a lot of my childhood listening to music sung in other languages (my father speaks well over ten so he had diverse musical tastes). Edith always appealed to me because I could at least understand what she was singing about.
I’ve been listening to Edith, reminiscing about past lives and trips. Let’s call it “pandemic escapism”. I think we all are spending a lot of time reminiscing, thinking, and trying to distract ourselves. Summertime is typically an insanely busy time for photographers (even freelance ones). I don’t think I’ve had a summer in the last five years that has been this quiet. I know that some full-time photographers are trying to work in whatever way they can, booking sessions outdoors, masking, etc. Under no circumstances do I judge their choices, but I realized in the spring, that despite the easing restrictions, I was not going to chase photography work until it was safer, I wasn’t in the right head-space for it.
We all need to find our own ways through this. Much like some parents deciding whether to send their kids to school or to homeschool, for me, when restrictions lifted slightly, there was this nagging ‘should I?’ at the back of my head. After much thought, I acknowledged to myself I wasn’t ready. The new fluidity of rising and declining cases has me a little more cautious than I used to be and I have other options. I am fortunate enough to have another income while other photographers do not. Working from home is safer, I have an elderly mother than needs me to help care for her and a partner who is immunocompromised.
Nevertheless, I wake up every morning and question my own decisions. I am so so tired of photo walks in the neighborhood, so tired of photographing interesting fences and garbage floating in puddles! I’ve taken so many pictures of my dogs and my mother that I will be able to do a whole set someday when we are through this all. Alas, the isolation continues and this strange time is forcing me to stretch my creative muscles, to seek out non-human subjects.
In late May I went for a short walk to a park near where I live and realized many of the ornamental plums and apple trees planted in a newer area had matured beautifully since the last time I’d been there. So I challenged myself to return to the same park to capture the different stages of the flowering trees. I went at different times of the day and played with different lenses. The result has been a collection of very interesting but contrasting images that show how the time of day, light, and lens can make huge differences in colour and mood.
So I came back to Edith Piaf and her over-played cliche song when I was sitting on a concrete planter contemplating my next shot. I was thinking how the way the sunlight was shining through the blossoms, the air actually seemed pink. The lyrics of the song speak of being in love, of being so happy that you see the world in pink. Then it occurred to me, that we could probably all use a set of rose-coloured glasses right now. We need to daydream, to fall into our good, warm, pink memories. I want to be sentimental, emotional, and clichéd — so, there. As Edith would say: Non, Je ne regrette rien.
I am currently republishing content from my photography blog. This piece is modified from a post originally published at Hanne Pearce Photography & Design on August 1, 2020.
