Description
Just as the COVID pandemic caused the New South Wales health minister to issue sweeping lockdown rules at the end of March 2020, photographer John Swainston’s family was moving their home to Bowral, 110km south of Sydney. One of the few valid reasons to travel was to move house – so in that first strange month John combined a number of road trips transporting the family possessions with a photo-documentary of the vacated, locked-down city of Sydney by night.
Later, even tougher restrictions made Sydney completely inaccessible for some months. But as work-related permits became available, John resumed recording a city completely alien to its planned purpose. He was also there to document the return of commuters in October 2021.
This historic record concludes with the triumphant reopening of the Sydney Opera House in July 2022.
Bill McCurry –
We were fortunate to be in Sydney during John’s completion of this amazing collection of then/now Sydney pictures and hear/read about his foresight in capturing these moments which hopefully will never be repeated. You owe it to your future family to use this book to explain a part of history that you lived through but others will not understand without John’s photographs to illustrate how Sydney was impacted. We gave copies to our family that have traveled in Oz – their friends were amazed at the severity of Australia’s lockdown compared to various cities in the USA – John’s pictures told a story better than any news media… We are fortunate to have these images
Jane Stockel –
One of the more meaningful books I have ever purchased. We bought 5 copies as Christmas gifts and the reactions from recipients was ‘Wow, what an amazing record of a time which we hope never comes around again.’ Well done.