LONDON, ONT. -- It is certainly fair to say we are living in a significant moment in modern human history.
And that is why one Londoner has started to document it.
Joe O’Neil, a well known city funeral director, is also a photographer and amateur historian.
“It struck me that telephoto lenses and drones aren’t affected by social distancing,” he tells CTV News.
Concerned and aware his day job will likely become essential as the novel coronavirus pandemic continues, O’Neil decided to use his other passions to ease his mind and to create a photographic journal of day-to-day life in a much quieter London.
“I’ll have to be out there, so I might as well bring my camera.”
O’Neil began his quest this weekend, taking photos of empty streets on what would normally be a busy afternoon in London's Old East neighbourhood.
“It’s looks like a post-apocalyptic landscape. There are no people around,” he says.
But, his most startlingly initial work is a shot of the normally busy Adelaide Street overpass, taken at four in the afternoon Saturday. There are few cars in sight.
Another perspective, shot from 100 metres above, shows the empty field and H.B. Secondary School, and no cars - at all - travelling on King Street.
O’Neil expects to be permitted to travel the streets, even if tighter measures are introduced, so he feels it's important the city is documented.
“I feel like it’s a moral obligation to do it. How can you scream about preserving history if you’re not willing to do it yourself? So, from a moral point of view, I think I have to do this. “
