The outbreak and spread of Covid-19 in the whole world continues to apply limitations in everyone’s life. The pandemic forced us to stop and think if the limitations deprive the photographers from reconsidering or finding stories, or give the opportunity of that. Extraordinary emergency state is a dilemma for us — photographers. Shall we come out and try to photograph what’s going on outside, or direct our eyes inward, toward our private space?

Several photographers share here their self-isolation as an experience in the group photography diary of “4Plus”.

 
 


From the very first days of isolation I decided I was going to photograph. My camera was on a tripod for the first time and was directed to me. An extraordinary and artificial situation parallel to the reality in the world. I have taken the photo at the “4Plus” office backyard, where we park our cars. There are many parking spots now, and the blooming tree is so beautiful for the first time.
Nazik Armenakyan

 
 

To count the days, the hours, the steps taken in the room, then the embroidered shadows of the curtains, the sliding clouds, the lights in the windows. To stop like the time has stopped in the universe, to look inward, to gaze outward, to turn the emotions into images, the images into photos, to look at them, to miss the smell of the city, the movement, the people, to count the survived ones, then the ones who died and who recovered, to drawn the anxiety in mint tea, to turn the numbers into food, to read, write, eat, wash, then again to read, write, eat, wash… in short to learn to wait.
Sona Adamyan

 
 


Catherine is my daughter. She moisturizes a paper napkin, makes holes in the spots of eyes on it, spreads it on her face and says it’s a very good moisturizing mask. Our days pass by fighting-reconciling, talking this and that. We got used to the halt in a way. I wonder how much it will take to get used to the former rhythm, or what is more, will there be a former rhythm? If no, what then?
Anahit Hayrapetyan

 
 

In the anxiety and global uncertainty of the pandemic I myself become certain against my inner intentions, choices, escapes, fears. I begin to see, think such things, that I wouldn’t see in everyday rushing in the past. It’s a time for reconsidering things, at least for me…
In the first photograph my wife is at home, in isolation, after checking the statistics of the diseased and dead during the world pandemic.
In the second photograph it’s our hallway, usually noisy and crowded, while strangely empty in these days of isolation.
Vaghinak Ghazaryan

 
 


It’s a funny situation now. It seems it was meant to be like this. Now I chill, I rest. Sometimes, when I think of money, I worry a bit, but it passes right away. I accept this reality, I don’t resist. This situation makes you lazy, that’s what freaks me out, otherwise everything else is ordinary.
It’s important to survive, everything else is a technical issue, we’ll solve it.
Areg Balayan

 
 

No matter how much I had heard and seen things about pandemics from afar, I would never imagine I would see and feel it so close. The unrestful calmness of doctors. In reality you understand how dangerous it is. But even if something happens, you will be in good hands. The first photograph is from Nork Infection Clinic, the second is from Nork Orthopedic.
Karapet Sahakyan

 
 


Our another newly rented house is captured in the photo. There was a time when we lived with friends in one house, then the houses multiplied, which means we spread to different houses. In the first days of self-isolation there was a hustle and bustle at home, some had moved in, and the conversations multiplied with new topics, to be exact, with a basic topic, which everyone talks about, expecting, perhaps, that if we talk much about Coronavirus, it will pass, and we will return to our former topics, or there will emerge new ones. While Arman just stares out of the window, he is the most silent one.
Staring out of the window these days is like sending heavy files by a slow internet connection. It seems that if you don’t look away from the greening transfer, it will go fast. Anyway, green is becoming more and more lavish out of the window.
Narek Aleksanyan

 
 

 
 


Before the extraordinary sun these days,
the blue messages of the commandant,
the darkness
and sex of BTRs,
the memory of your avoiding lips,
and the clearness of your forehead,
I feel myself a
blossoming flower of pepper.

Anna Davtyan

 
 


Day 21. Self-isolation often takes people to a self-concentration, self-care period. In my case it has formed an artificial distance between me and me. That distance doesn’t have a measuring unit, it can distort a day, which can last just an hour, while an hour may last a whole day.
Piruza Khalapyan

 
 

The feeling of self gradually blurred during these days of isolation. The immediate process of identifying myself becomes more and more slow. I have unconsciously tried to photograph that unclear feeling hoping to find myself.
Tatev Hakobyan

 
 


I endlessly feel a smell of virus outside, while inside the air doesn’t suffice. I begin and end the day with daily chores, with reading news. I regret that I can’t document, take photos freely. I am afraid of catching the virus and infecting my mother.
Gayane Harutyunyan

 
 


Box is our photo laboratory and home, where we live with friends for two years now. We have found this clothing in a room of the old box, though the owner had warned never to open it. There were incubators in that room, we were scared, then we found out that the former owners had been worm-healers. We found no application opportunity for this clothing, until it became one of the most describing outfits of these days. It’s me in the photo dressed in the most fashionable clothing closed in Box.
Sona Mnatsakanyan