JOSÉ Soto

“Fully lit parks and streets now have a different atmosphere. Tall industrial generator lights, which are normally used to provide increase safety, create eerie rumbling theatrical stages.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, I have been capturing scenes of Central Park at night. Fully lit parks and streets now have a different atmosphere. Tall industrial generator lights, which are normally used to provide increased safety, create eerie rumbling theatrical stages. Antique lamp posts illuminate empty pathways that used to be crowded throughout the night.

All of this takes place only steps away from a makeshift field hospital set up in Central Park for COVID-19 patients. The source of the light that illuminates the scenes in this photographic series is mercury, which is extracted from cinnabar, a red toxic ore. The source of the lights that provide safety, signals danger in a park that has become simultaneously an oasis, a place of healing and death during the coronavirus outbreak.

Josesotophotography.com