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Photo Essays

Scenes from the Big Shutdown

Joshua Berson's images record an extraordinary time in BC.

Tyee Staff 2 Jun 2020TheTyee.ca

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Who masked Robbie Burns? ‘I have no idea,’ says photographer Joshua Berson, who has caught whimsical moments as well as dramatic ones during the COVID-19 pandemic. All photos by Joshua Berson.

Eleven weeks ago today the B.C. government declared a public health emergency, shutting down bars and nightclubs and other businesses not meeting strict measures for limiting transmission of the coronavirus. The big shutdown that began then is lifting some. The masks aren’t going anywhere, but boards are coming off windows and traffic is slowly picking up as phase two of B.C.’s pandemic response kicks in.

The rapid mobilization in the weeks after COVID-19 arrived has been dizzying, with essential workers on edge and everyone nail-bitingly watching the addresses from Dr. Bonnie Henry and company to make sense of our new society.

Photographer Joshua Berson, whose pictures you will have seen in our stories, has been documenting it all since the beginning, from the first responder to the deli counter to the state of Vancouver’s streets.

Berson knew it was historic, though his son had a hard time understanding.

“Dad, you really only take pictures of people and there are no people in these photos,” he said.

“I explained to him that he may never see intersections empty like this again,” said Berson. “One day, I said, you will tell your kid about witnessing these empty streets.”

Here are Berson’s pictures and reflections from a pandemic city.

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The March 20 presser with BC Health Minister Adrian Dix, provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry and Nigel Howard, sign-language interpreter. ‘Nigel Howard, deaf interpreter for Dr. Bonnie Henry, emerges as his own cult hero. Right away, people couldn’t stop talking about and watching Nigel at work. How many sign interpreters can brag about being on T-shirts?’
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Vancouver’s once-bustling Broadway office corridor.
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‘As I was taking photos of the totally empty Stanley Park causeway, there appeared this lone ambulance on the rise of the Lions Gate Bridge.’
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‘I do about 50 flights a year, mostly with Air Canada, so seeing this grounded plane through the fence made me feel rather nostalgic. I spent a few hours at YVR taking photos of the near total emptiness of the airport. There were whole floors with almost no people.’
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‘I took this on a BC ferry as suddenly physical distancing was changing so many aspects of our daily geometry.’
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‘This statue of poet Robbie Burns is at the entrance to Stanley Park and is about three metres tall. I have no idea how someone scaled the statue to install the mask but it sure impressed me.’
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Lions Gate Hospital early March, during the first cases of COVID-19.
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Surrey Memorial Hospital. ‘People were very reluctant to go the hospital after there had been the first few outbreaks. These new screening security measures started popping up at hospitals — which made a visit even more intimidating for the public but ultimately safer for the staff and patients.’
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‘I was astounded by the amount of trauma and human suffering that these young paramedics have seen in their short career — more than many of us would want to see in a lifetime. Paramedics are the most resilient people I have worked with, but COVID-19 had them very worried about themselves and the public. Still, with a brash sense of humour unique to first responders, these folks start their 12-hour shifts joking around.’ Photo taken in Surrey.
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‘There is a place in heaven for paramedics, and a special place for those who work Station 248 in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. Many of the ambulance attendants who work that station have no desire to work anywhere else, as they have come to know and love the community. I watched these two paramedics patiently talk to and assess this elderly gentleman for almost 30 minutes before tenderly helping him onto the stretcher and into the ambulance. This took place at Hastings and Main on Friday night, surrounded by noise, people and traffic everywhere.’
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Pot lids and drumsticks at 7 p.m. near St. Paul’s Hospital.
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‘There are much fancier signs of thank you for frontline workers, but I like the impermanence of this chalk message in front of St. Paul’s.’
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‘Early in the pandemic, it seemed strange to many folks that Granville Island should be considered an essential service and be allowed to remain open. Although the non-food parts were closed, there were still very few people venturing out to go food shopping in March.’
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Berson was at a local farmers market and didn’t want to miss this scene, so he snapped it on his phone. ‘Overboard? For sure. But with such style.’
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‘Dr. Bonnie Henry is even more calming and more brilliant in person that on screen. But what’s particularly amazing is that she delivers her daily briefings to a near-empty room.’
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‘Small things, like the daily individualized water cups, are the specialty of the attentive staff working at the daily press briefings.’
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‘Although I waited for a while for someone to step into this frame, I couldn’t have asked for a more apt subject. Totally unscripted, but wholly appropriate.’
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At the Insite supervised consumption site.
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‘On Robson Street, the window coverings were initially covered with meaningless and sometimes racist graffiti. But when the coverings were installed in Gastown, these beautiful thank you messages emerged. I was drawn to photograph this particular illustration as the message was so very specific, thanking respiratory therapists.’
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Taken May 25. ‘Anita Whincup. I was moved by the love and care being handed out with food and clean rigs at the Atira pop-up safe-injection site for women-identifying people across from Oppenheimer Park. I spent an hour talking with the peer-support workers and people using the services while taking photos. As I was leaving, one of the women told me that I should be honoured, as I was the first man to be invited into the space. Truly I was.’

[Tyee]

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