Life in Lockdown: members of the ES team share their photo highlights

Looking to enter our lockdown photography and video competition? Members of the Evening Standard team share their lockdown photo highlights to get you started
Jessica Landon
Jessica Benjamin25 March 2021

At the beginning of February, the Evening Standard launched Life in Lockdown, our photographic and video competition open to all London readers.

Any reader of any age will be able to enter, with the winners being published in a special edition of ES Magazine.

Judges - including British photographer and collector Martin Parr - are looking for a photo (or series of photos) or video that reflects your personal experience of lockdown. So to get started, we spoke to four members of the ES team to see what their photographic highlight of the past year has been.

Jenny Sterne, Social and SEO Editor

Jenny’s at-home pub
Jenny Sterne

‘As the hope of being in a London pub started to become less of a distant dream, it only made me miss them more. So while sitting at home (obviously) one Saturday in lockdown I decided there was only one thing for it I needed to make my own. So if you can’t wait until the joy of a pub beer garden on April 12th, I would recommend the cardboard alternative.

Yes I was bored. And the idea of having an excuse to order a keg of beer from Brockley Brewery was tempting. So I found myself turning what had been the box of a new desk chair into my own Locked Inn - one perk of the WFH lifestyle I guess.

My boyfriend was at work all day so I had hours to turn our dining table into the perfect replica of our pre-Covid Saturday nights - pork scratchings and scampi and chips included of course.

What was his reaction? Well his first exclaim was “you’re insane”, probably rightly. But after I poured the first pint and we joined our weekly pub Zoom with friends from inside a cardboard pub I think it was a success.’

Niamh O’Keeffe, Editorial Coordinator and EA to the Publisher

Niamh’s evening view
Niamh O’Keeffe

‘There’s something so comforting (and a bit Mary Poppins)about this image – a view from our kitchen window on Chatsworth Road in deepest lockdown, taken by my sister. Even in the darkest times there have been moments of light and an appreciation of home and my local hood – dinners with flatmates, chats with the owner of my corner shop and a love of London that is now stronger than ever.’

Meaghan Spencer, Assistant Audience Editor

Guinness the cat
Meaghan Spencer

‘Life in lockdown was generally frustrating and repetitive until I met Guinness. No, not the pint of black stuff. This Guinness is an attention-seeking but incredibly loving black cat.

My boyfriend Alex and I rescued him from Cat’s Protection back in July and he quickly became my reason for getting out of bed in the morning. That reason mainly being that if I don’t get up and feed him at exactly 7am, he will continue to paw my hair and stuff his big furry head in my face until I give in.

Guinness settled in immediately; stealing food, cuddles and spots on the sofa at every opportunity. He’s kept us entertained while working from home and has introduced himself to most of my work colleagues by interrupting Zoom meetings.

The two of us have had plenty of quality time in which to develop our attachment issues as two sets of surgeries in the past four months have forced Alex to leave our little home so that he can recover more easily at his parents’. I’ve been carefully using this time to fully embrace the cat lady stereotype.

Guinness is undoubtedly a nuisance at times, but it’s been a comfort knowing I have my furry shadow during the stress and worry of lockdown.’

Jessica Landon, Deputy Art Director, ES Magazine

Jessica’s Hackney garden swimming pool
Jessica Landon

‘It was a hot hot day on 26thApril 2020 a month into Lockdown. London was experiencing one of the hottest Aprils on record and we were all stuck at home.

A few weeks before this date my husband Tom went online to order a paddling pool and then one thing led to another, and we got more and more carried away and before we knew it we had ordered a huge 3 metre by 2 metre pool that fills up half of our small ex-council house garden (I mean patio) in Hackney. ‘That should keep our 4 little boys busy,’ we thought and it seemed like £100 well spent. (£100 that were NOT spending on commuting to work).

When the huge box arrived, Tom - who had been recovering from Covid - found the energy to assemble the pool. It was all very impressive with a metal frame and a pump that you plug in and chlorine tablets that fit inside a plastic floating thingy. The effort to assemble the equipment was so exhausting that it put Tom back to bed for a week, but the boys didn’t notice as they were having too much fun in the pool, laughing and splashing and making all the neighbours jealous.

On the 26th April, one of the hottest days, I posted this photo on Instagram of my 7 year old son Jago looking like he was actually swimming in the pool. When everyone was stuck at home in the heat, really missing a swimming pool – this image of the cool, refreshing, clear water was too much. Over the next 48 hours I was bombarded with messages on Instagram and every other method – texts, WhatsApp, emails for people I had no contact with since we worked together 10 years ago and who I didn’t even know followed my private Instagram account! Cousins, old friends, people I went to school with, many parents from the boys’ school –everyone went berserk when they saw this photograph. I think I had a total of 62 messages all asking the same thing - where did we get the pool and how does it work and does it have a pump and how much does it cost, etc etc.

During such a dull time, this event captured in this photograph was a huge highlight in our very small world.’

To submit a photo entry, click here. To submit a video entry, click here. You’ll also find the terms and conditions on the relevant entry page. Entries close at 23.59 on March 31, 2021.

Evening Standard Life In Lockdown Photography Competition 2021

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