Photographing and alone during a pandemic
A couple of weeks ago, I was at a small hospital to document as they tested for COVID-19. Its protocol involved taking the temperature of everyone who entered the building. The thermometer beeped at 98.6 for me.
“You’re perfect!” the nurse declared.
“I still have some flaws,” I mumbled, but I did feel reassured for a moment.
It’s my responsibility as a Houston Chronicle photojournalist to document this moment and to make that connection to those who can’t be physically there seeing what is going on.
Photojournalists don’t just take a lot of pictures and throw them together. We put them into some context. We use light, layering and moment as well as getting close to the subject. Early on in our careers, we are taught the Robert Capa quote, “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you aren’t close enough.” And this is a challenge with social distancing: 6 feet can feel so far away for creating that personal connection through a two-dimensional image. But we can’t risk ourselves or others, so we adjust by using longer lenses and work on communicating through masks and hope that our eyes are enough to connect with people.
It’s different from how we’ve been working our whole careers. I like to point out, when people bring up that quote, that Capa did die from a landmine explosion.
I shot the first coronavirus news conference at Fort Bend County. We call them “pressers.” It started two hours after my shift ended. I worked 12 hours that day. I’ve photographed a stressed-out preteen, homeschooling, people making shields with 3D printers, people buying groceries, people trying to get their hair done, a rural hospital and local doctor, empty parking lots at the Galleria, empty streets downtown, closed theaters at night, testing sites, press conferences, families quarantined, more press conferences, online cooking classes, online workouts, school food distribution, hand sanitizer giveaways, homeless populations dealing with the unknown, the rodeo closing and high school seniors dressed up for the prom they won’t have.
I already had gloves, hand sanitizer, alcohol wipes and face masks in my hurricane kit. Disasters aren’t new for me. In more than 20 years of working at newspapers, I have covered tornadoes, the 2010 Haiti earthquake and Hurricane Harvey. Photographically, the threats of those disasters were clear. With Harvey, I found myself trying to get to every place I could to show what was happening. I hardly slept and didn’t take a day off for three weeks. After covering the news conference in Fort Bend County, when the first coronavirus case in the area was announced, I found myself getting into that sprinting mode. I wanted to run from story
to story. But as the story and threat kept evolving, I soon realized that covering this pandemic is a marathon, not a sprint. And the photos are going to be all around us. All of it, the good, the bad and the mundane.
Ultimately, I’m not so concerned about which lenses I’ll be using or if there’s some barrier to communication because of the the 6 feet or my mask. What I’m aware of is that no matter what I do to protect myself, I’m still out there crossing paths with strangers every day, who may or may not take the same precautions. The randomness in the people I meet in a day is something in my job I value and love, but now it puts me at risk. What keeps me up at night is knowing that when I do get sick, I’ll be dealing with it alone.
Both my determination to not bother people and my living on my own have put me in this position. In fact, years after my dad died, I still kept him as my emergency contact, using a childhood phone number that he hadn’t used three years prior to his passing. When I get sick, there will be no one checking my vitals, no one to make sure I eat when I’m too weak or take medicine to keep my fever down, no one to send messages out to family or co-workers updating how I am doing and, if it came to it, no one to call for a ride to the hospital.
That’s why getting my temperature taken at the small hospital I photographed gave me a brief feeling of reassurance.
Years ago, while downsizing as an empty-nester, I threw away my son’s thermometer. I always saw it that way: his thermometer, not mine. Growing up in a large family, a scabbed knee was met with immediate concern, but once it was determined you weren’t going to die, you were expected to continue your way and show up to the dinner table clean and on time. Over the years, being on my own has just built upon that foundation of independence. And like most of my siblings, when I got the opportunity to move to a city and state where I have no connections for a job I love, there was no hesitation to accept it.
And because of that, here I am, alone, during a pandemic.
But to be honest, it was the earlier reports about the age and health of victims of the virus that I considered my greatest defense. I am in my 40s with no underlying health issues, so in my mind I would be OK. And as a newspaper photographer, knowing I’d be out in the community as this story unfolded, I was pretty certain early on that it wasn’t a matter of if I get sick, but when. But then, as it always seems to do these days with COVID-19, the news changed. Suddenly, those between 40 and 50 years old were being hospitalized at a quicker rate. In a moment, I lost my false security that everything would be OK.
The world of photojournalists is a small one, and it didn’t take long for people I’ve met or known over the years to start getting sick.
The first was cameraman Kevin Calhoun in Detroit, who started showing signs after shooting postgame locker room interviews with the Utah Jazz after an NBA game against the Pistons. He was put in a medical-induced coma and has just been released. Austin American-Statesman photojournalist Lola Gomez, who was refused testing five times even though she was showing symptoms, was hospitalized. And on April 12, Anthony Causi, 48, a sports photographer with the New York Post, passed away, having contracted the virus covering spring training.
My son lives in Los Angeles; his phone is in and out of service constantly. He isn’t the quickest at returning text messages, calls or emails. Will he find out I’m sick before I’m too sick? Even so, what could he do? If it came to it, would he call me back before I get intubated? Will I be able to
talk to anyone?
I still can’t shake that “it’s more ‘when’ than ‘if ’ ” feeling, although I’m getting better at not panicking about it and being as proactive as I can. I’ve added an easy-to-open pill box with acetaminophen and ibuprofen to my medicine drawer. I’ve made some homemade broth to freeze. I have fresh-squeezed orange juice in the refrigerator. This is like any of my past challenges: I’ll figure it out. And next time I find a thermometer, I’ll buy it.
Over this month, I’ve witnessed a change in the people
I’ve met on assignments similar to Kübler-Ross’ stages of grief. As the rodeo was packing up, there seemed to be denial and anger. By the next week, I watched people bargaining for one last convenience to their life, getting in one last night at the bar, telling themselves “if you’re outside, you should be OK.” Now, I see us between depression and acceptance. It’s a heavy thing to witness and document.
This isn’t to say that I haven’t been moved by the moments of joy, creativity and resilience that I’ve been honored to document for our readers and future generations. It’s that spirit that has made it worthwhile to be out in the community; it is that resilience I’ve witnessed that has made me re-examine the kinds of choices it is time for me to unmake so I can grow.
And of course, growth comes in small bursts. I’ve coordinated online weekly family chats, so we can all visibly check in. I have my son’s Google Voice number on speed dial.
Conley is an award-winning staff photographer for the Houston Chronicle who moved to Houston from Detroit in 2015 after working 12 years at the Detroit News.