Posts by Steve Bennett
Just Another Sunday at the Grocery Store
Here we are in March 2022, just another Sunday at the grocery store during the pandemic. The masks will (hopefully) come off before too long, but memories of our cloaked social interactions will take time to fade, if ever. Copyright © 2022 Steven Bennett Steve BennettSteve Bennett is a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based visual artist.…
Read MoreNew Year’s Eve 2021
This is not what I expected to be posting on New Year’s Eve 2021. In fact, I couldn’t imagine that I’d be posting anything new on The Pandemic Lens on the last day of 2021. My plan was to stop publishing any new materials once life resumed to normal as we all…
Read MoreSigns of Spring 2021
Tulips, daffodils, and scores of other species are dotting the landscape, providing a welcome sign that spring is in full gear. New outdoor eating structures are changing the urban landscape, too, at least in Cambridge and Somerville, MA. Over the past few days I’ve been noting how outdoor restaurant extensions are drawing more people with…
Read MoreWaiting and Watching
In my lens-based composite, “Jailhouse Quartet,” which I created in 2019, the grid is part of the rusted steel strap lattice that makes up the walls of the outdoor Kelso Depot Jail in the Mojave Preserve (the jail was used from the mid-1940s to 1985 to detain inebriated folks). The two-cell jail sits next to…
Read MoreOur Ticket Out, Hopefully
When I created this photo-based composite image, a pandemic of any sort was the last thing on my mind. The artwork was inspired by the tension between a marquee sign at a train station, “Your Ticket Out,” and a nearby iron fence. (The passerby was just conveniently walking on the other side.) Fast forward three…
Read MoreDiscretion (Still) Advised
Saw this while waiting for my drink at Simon’s Coffee in Cambridge, MA, which is take out only. A good reminder that we still need to be vigilant until enough people are vaccinated and the variants are understood. I am so looking forward to the time when the bottom piece of paper on the door…
Read MoreHalf a Million and Counting
On June 7, 2020, I ventured out of my house with camera in hand for the first time in weeks to document life on the street. The following photo of the Somerville Theater in Davis Square, Massachusetts, with its marquee message, “stay home and be safe,” became the impetus for a series on my Instagram…
Read MoreWhich Way?
It seems that we’re at an inflection point, with the end to the acute phase of the pandemic is imaginable. Once the scourge of 2020 is in our rearview mirrors, we’ll have important choices to make. Will we go about our business as usual, or will we take the lessons we’ve learned and perhaps live…
Read MoreWe’re Back!
As I walk around North Cambridge, MA for exercise and photo opportunities, I pay close attention to the storefronts and restaurants. Some are hanging in. Others have said their goodbyes through heartfelt notes on their doors and windows. And still others are in a state of suspended animation; the lights are off, the signs from…
Read MoreA Pandemic for All Seasons
Spring 2020—we thought the “new normal” would surely be temporary. Then it extended to summer 2020. And fall 2020. And winter 2020. I’m hoping to show a very different collage at the end of 2021. Copyright © 2021 Steve Bennett Steve BennettSteve Bennett is a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based visual artist. He began taking photographs…
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