The New Celebration

As COVID-19 and its effects permeate into every aspect of peoples’ lives nowadays, we are all forced to do things in a different way. Many types of holidays have and will pass while we are all staying in our homes and doing our part to ‘flatten the curve.’ Easter, birthdays, and Mother’s Day is coming up and they will all have to be celebrated in a new and unconventional way. I photographed my own birthday celebration since it had to be very different from what I was expecting. Through the images, I hope to show that people are still celebrating in new ways and how these celebrations have changed because of COVID-19.

I moved home for a few weeks just in time to celebrate my birthday. I took photos of us celebrating my birthday along with my dad’s that happened in March. I took photos of my family’s actual actions, no posing involved. I also took photos of any of the video calls I had with friends or family. I also went on walks with friends as a way to celebrate while social distancing. I hope these photos help to remember what it was like when people look back at these months of quarantine and social distancing, and that not every single part of it was horrible. We learned, as a society, to do things differently to still live in a fulfilling way.