photo essay about covid 19

This issue: Summer 2020

COVID-19 Photo Essay

Photos by Chris Low

A new reality: As news of the spread of COVID-19 became more prevalent, students began practicing social distancing and other safety precautions in the classroom. In late March, campus was closed to comply with Oregon’s “Stay Home, Save Lives” mandate.

Sign of the times: A traffic sign on highway 99W reminds drivers coming into Newberg to avoid large group gatherings.

Strength in community: While campus was closed, the Bruin Community Pantry food bank remained open, with enhanced safety protocols, to ensure that no George Fox student went hungry.

Social distancing: A student sits alone in the university’s outdoor amphitheater. As students moved home to begin remote learning, sights like this around campus became much more common.

Meeting of the minds: The university leadership team, including President Robin Baker, connects via Zoom to discuss how best to care for students in a remote learning environment.

Deep cleaning: A Jani-King employee disinfects one of the residence hall bathrooms.

Home/work: English professor Jessica Ann Hughes leads class from a makeshift home office.

Virtual classroom: Biblical studies professor Brian Doak finds a creative way to engage with students.

Signs of hope: George Fox alumna Jessica (Lavarias) Brittell (’06), co-owner of MOB Signs, created this display outside the Providence Newberg Medical Center to show appreciation for doctors and nurses on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The university that prays together… Jake Thiessen and Moses Hooper from the marketing communications department pray before a virtual meeting.

Featured Stories

The Class of COVID-19

COVID-19 Through the Eyes of Students

Engineering a Solution

Essential Personnel

Friendship House

Taking Aim at the Opioid Epidemic

What's Next

52 Years and Counting

A Century of Mentorship

Going for Gold

PNW Adventures

Serving with Passion

Bruin Notes

• More than $139,000 Raised for Students Affected by Coronavirus
• COVID-19 Pandemic Leads to Spring Semester Unlike Any Other
• Faculty Members Honored as Top Teachers, Researchers for 2019-20
• George Fox Digital to Deliver Be Known Promise in Online Format
• Development of Patient-Centered Care Model Puts DPT Program in National Spotlight
• Physician Assistant Program Set to Launch in 2021
• Rankings Roundup: George Fox Earns Top Spot Among Christian Colleges in Oregon
• Recent Recognition
• Scott Selected as New Provost

Alumni Connections

• Art and Entrepreneurship
• Art with an Impact
• Babies and Marriages
• News, by Graduating Year
• Not a Spectator
• Working in Small Infinities
• Send Us Your News

Coronavirus

COVID-19 photo essay reflects on the day our lives changed forever three years ago

While it feels almost a lifetime ago for some, it's been exactly three years since a state of emergency was declared in Western Australia as the novel coronavirus began to send shock waves around the world. 

Already isolated by its geography, the unprecedented move cemented the state as a hermit kingdom and fundamentally changed the way sandgropers went about their daily lives. 

This picture essay illustrates a pivotal and unsettling chapter in our history, and reflects how the virus dictated the way we lived.

Panic and confusion

COVID-19 was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019, but the panic didn't set in until a couple of months later when news of mass deaths overseas was beamed in to living rooms across Australia.

The virus captivated the entire world, but the threat really hit home when Australia recorded its first COVID death on March 1 — a Perth man who had been aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship. 

Australians were given a stern warning to return home as soon as possible ahead of the country's border being slammed shut, with international arrivals forced into hotel quarantine in an effort to stop the deadly virus getting in.

The first round of COVID-19 restrictions, including gathering limits and indoor venue closures, started to give people an inkling of how much their lives were about to be turned upside down. 

Holidays and big events were cancelled, weddings went online and Rottnest Island went from the home of quokka selfies to a quarantine hub for cruise ship passengers. 

Lines curled around liquor stores as the fear of being locked down without a cold stubbie or red wine in hand was too much to bear for most, while subscriptions to streaming services went through the roof. 

Grocery store shelves were stripped bare and arguments broke out in supermarket aisles as panic buying led to a nationwide toilet paper drought.

ABC reporter Francesca Mann dared to dream when she saw a shopper walk past her with the rare commodity at a Geraldton supermarket.

"I could not believe my eyes," she said.

"I quickly walked over to the toilet paper aisle and there were about seven packs left. It felt like the most valuable item at the time, so it got the royal treatment on the way home."

Mann snapped an equally humorous shot of her pet cat Arya sprawled across her desk in the first few days of working from home. 

'Stop the spread'

The state introduced its first round of border restrictions at the end of March, restricting interstate travel to stop the virus spreading between regions and to protect vulnerable Indigenous communities. 

On April 5, 2020, the WA government implemented its harshest border restrictions yet, slamming its borders shut — not just to international arrivals, but to the east as well. 

It marked the beginning of an upsetting chapter in the state's history, leaving families divided for two years and living up to Premier Mark McGowan's promise to turn WA into an "island within an island".

The travel restrictions wreaked havoc on the tourism and events industries, but it also created a spike in domestic tourism when the state eased restrictions to allow West Australians to holiday in their own backyard. 

Sandgropers swapped their annual pilgrimage to Bali for the sublime sunsets in Broome, the chance to swim with whale sharks in Exmouth or to see the ancient gorges in the Karijini National Park.

But Perth's bustling city centre had turned into a ghost town as West Australians dutifully obeyed restrictions, which shut down the city. 

Just a few pedestrians could be spotted in Forrest Place in April, 2020. Image: Hugh Sando.

Even a trip to the beach came with reminders to practise social distancing. Image: Amelia Searson.

Trains crisscrossed the city virtually empty. Image: Hugh Sando.

The doors to restaurants, cafes and bars were shuttered. Image: Rebecca Mansell.

The state library was eerily empty. Image: Emma Wynne.

Children were cooped up inside as playgrounds closed. Image: Gian De Poloni.

Slogans like this started popping up around Perth as people banded together to face the crisis. Image: Damian Smith.

For weeks, the cruise ship Artania became the focus of a tense stand-off between the operator and Mr McGowan, who demanded it leave WA waters.

Anzac Day that year was unlike any other due to the traditional service and march being cancelled — the first time since 1942.

Veterans and families instead marked Anzac Day from the end of their suburban driveways.

By this stage, the virus dominated every aspect of our lives.

Even the security guard, Steve, who opened the door for the premier before he delivered his daily press conference, had become part of life under COVID.

Living inside the bubble

Restrictions were gradually eased in May after the virus was eliminated, allowing West Australians to continue living relatively normally for many months compared to what was happening over east.

With no community transmission, WA moved from a hard border to a controlled border in October, with authorities continually lowering and lifting the drawbridge in line with outbreaks in other states. 

On December 5, a tool was unveiled that would dramatically change the way West Australians interacted with the world around them.

The trio of snap lockdowns

But it was impossible to keep the virus out forever, with the state's 10-month coronavirus-free streak ending on January 21, 2021 when a hotel quarantine security guard tested positive.

Perth was locked down twice more in 2021 — from April 24 to April 27 after a hotel quarantine outbreak and from June 29 to July 3 after three COVID cases were detected in the community. 

Vaccine hesitancy takes hold

In October, one of the most divisive policies in WA's history was announced — mandatory vaccination for 75 per cent of the state's workforce.

Some were concerned about potential health impacts from the vaccine and felt it was impinging on people's right to have autonomy over their own bodies, while others felt it was the only way to reopen the borders and protect people from the virus. 

When the double-dose vaccination rate reached 80 per cent in December, it was announced that WA would finally reopen its border to the rest of the world on February 5, 2022.

But the joy that rippled through the community was short-lived, with WA Premier Mark McGowan performing a sensational backflip just a few weeks later at a late night press conference when he announced the reopening would be delayed.

However, it turned out the virulent strain was circulating in the community anyway, and the virus started to spread significantly for the first time in two years. 

'Let it rip'

On February 18, Mr McGowan made the announcement many had been waiting for — WA's hard border would come down on March 3 as he conceded it was no longer possible to stop the spread of the virus.

Many employers, including ABC News in Perth, quickly reverted to working from home arrangements for all but operationally critical staff to minimise the risk of spreading the virus in the workplace. 

As case numbers grew, so too did tensions between the state government and peak medical groups that warned against easing restrictions, as cracks in the hospital system deepened.

After being on the frontline of the battle against COVID, health workers began rallying for better pay, which would eventually lead to full-scale industrial action. 

As vaccination rates rose and the COVID outbreak in WA eased in April, the McGowan Government lifted most mask-wearing requirements but the Perth CBD remained a ghost town. 

Most remaining restrictions were removed in May as the triple-dose vaccination rate hit 80 per cent, but many vulnerable West Australians chose to stay home to shield themselves from the virus. 

But COVID continued to fade into the background for most, as the things that derailed our lives — lockdowns, mandatory isolation, mask and vaccine mandates— gradually became distant memories.

Living with the virus

People have learned how to live with the virus, and getting the vaccine has become about as normal as getting a yearly flu jab. 

After 963 days, WA's state of emergency finally ended on November 4, but the heartache caused by the 956 people who lost their lives, and the far-reaching impact on society and people's livelihoods, will be felt for years to come. 

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• State and Territory Government

• HISTORY & CULTURE
• CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE

Photos show the first 2 years of a world transformed by COVID-19

Our photographers bore witness to the ways the world has coped—and changed—since the pandemic began.

Two years ago this month, on March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization formally declared a pandemic caused by a novel coronavirus . And as COVID-19 spread across the globe, humanity had little time to adapt to lockdowns and staggering losses.

Nearly six million people have died from the disease so far, a death toll that experts say barely scratches the surface of the pandemic’s true harm. Hospitals and health care workers have been pushed to the brink, debates over masking have tested our bonds, and millions of grieving families will never truly return to life as normal—if it’s even possible to go back to a time when “social distancing” was an alien concept.  

Over past two years, National Geographic has documented how the world has coped with COVID-19 through the lenses of more than 80 photographers in dozens of countries. In the frightening early days, Cédric Gerbehave’s haunting image of Belgian nurses revealed the trauma of hospitals overrun by a disease that scientists didn’t yet understand. Tamara Merino confronted the overwhelming isolation of confinement during lockdown in Chile. And Muhammad Fadli took us to the gravesite of one of the many COVID-19 victims whose bodies filled up an Indonesian cemetery.

Our photographers have also shown us how the world adapted to these challenges. Families found new ways to connect when social distancing kept us from our loved ones, and new ways to grieve when we couldn’t hold funerals. Schools from Haiti to South Korea were able to safely reopen with mask mandates, smaller classes, and exams taken outdoors. And the 2021 graduating class of Howard University found a joyous way to celebrate commencement outdoors: by dancing down the streets of Washington, D.C.

Now, as we enter the pandemic’s third year, scientists warn that it isn’t over yet. More than 10 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered globally—but that isn’t enough to quell the danger of future surges and even more deadly variants . Still, there’s reason to hope that we’ll finally find our way toward a new normal.

Many of these images were made with the support of the National Geographic Society's   COVID-19 Emergency Fund for Journalists , which launched in March 2020 and funded more than 324 projects in over 70 countries. These projects revealed the social, emotional, economic, educational, and equity issues threatening livelihoods all over the world.

Physician Gerald Foret dons a full-face respirator mask before seeing COVID-19 patients at Our Lady of the Angels Hospital in Bogalusa, Louisiana. The mask was donated to the hospital when it was running low on disposable N95 masks. In the early months of the pandemic, health-care systems faced severe shortages of personal protective equipment such as face masks and disposable gloves—putting front-line workers like Foret in further jeopardy.

A baby is born at the only maternity hospital in Dagestan, Russia. Located on the southernmost tip of Russia along the Caspian Sea, the Muslim-majority republic suffered a catastrophic surge of coronavirus deaths in the spring of 2020. The losses in Dagestan raised questions about whether the Russian government was obscuring the pandemic’s true death toll.

Alfonso Sellano, age 64, battles COVID-19 while his wife and a nurse tend to him in Espinar, Peru. As of March 2022, the country has the highest COVID-19 death rate in the world , which experts say can be attributed to the country’s weak health-care system and pervasive social inequalities that make it difficult for marginalized people to protect themselves from the virus. For instance, many had to continue commuting to work even during lockdown in order to provide for their families.

Hours of work in a protective mask leave a transient scar down the face of Yves Bouckaert, the chief intensive care unit physician at Tivoli Hospital in La Louvière, Belgium.  

Ghislaine, a nurse in the geriatric ward at the same hospital, poses for a portrait with a tear running down her cheek. These photos were taken during the third wave of COVID-19, which triggered a new round of lockdowns in March 2021.

In Mons, Belgium, nursing colleagues take brief refuge in a shift break and each other’s company. Like medical facilities around the world, Belgian hospitals were initially overwhelmed by the rush of patients with a virulent new disease. These nurses, pulled from their standard duties, were thrown into full-time COVID-19 work—reinforcement troops for a long, exhausting battle.

COVID-19 has posed a particularly grave threat to Africa’s informal urban settlements —communities with high poverty rates where millions of people live in close quarters and often do not have access to clean water or toilets. In Nairobi, Kenya, residents of the Kibera informal settlement have their temperature checked by community health workers at a station set up by Shining Hope for Communities on March 26, 2020.

Home health-care worker Delores Jetton bathes her client Jean Robbins in a sunlit bedroom. “She is slow and prayerful as she bathes each person, washing with warm water and a touch that is so appreciated by these elders, who often face pain and fear at the end of life,” writes photographer Lynn Johnson. “As the bath progresses, one can see Robbins literally surrender to the touch.”  

Even with the availability of effective vaccines, people over 65 remain at high risk of dying from COVID-19 . Many have been told to stay home rather than visit health clinics in person—causing a significant rise in demand for home health workers, who have often found themselves stretched to exhaustion in these past two years.

The mummified body of a COVID-19 victim lies on the patient’s deathbed awaiting a bodybag in Jakarta, Indonesia. It took two nurses about an hour to wrap the patient in plastic—a measure intended to keep the coronavirus from spreading. Indonesians were shocked when they saw this image, which humanizes the losses of COVID-19 and horror of death from the disease.

“It’s clear that the power of this image has galvanized discussion about coronavirus,” photographer Joshua Irwandi told National Geographic in July 2020 . “We have to recognize the sacrifice, and the risk, that the doctors and nurses are making.”

At the Rayer Bazar graveyard in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Farid conducts the janazah , an Islamic funeral prayer, for a COVID-19 victim and his relatives attending the burial. Bangladesh designated the cemetery as its official burial place for COVID-19 victims in April 2020.

Defying Peruvian government protocols, the Shipibo-Konibo have organized illegal mourning and funerals during the pandemic to honor their dead as their tradition dictates. At the funeral of Milena Canayo, who died in July 2020 with symptoms of COVID-19, her 9-year-old daughter lights a candle before taking refuge at home. Shipibo-Konibo people live in the Amazon rainforest of Peru, including in cities like Pucallpa where Milena's funeral was held. But she was not treated at the local hospital—Ronald Suarez, head of the organization Coshikox, says the health and welfare of Indigenous people is always the last to be considered.  

Workers from a funeral home in Huancavelica wait until the end of a service to move a coffin into a grave at a city cemetery in April 2021. Much like the rest of the country, this city in central Peru has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.

After keeping their social distance during the New York City funeral of Annie Lewis, family members draw together around the casket to say a final goodbye. In the United States, COVID-19 has been particularly devastating for low-income communities of color. As photographer Ruddy Roye told National Geographic , “The coronavirus pandemic has laid bare the divisions in our city.”

Relatives visit a loved one’s fresh grave at Rorotan Public Cemetery in Cilincing, North Jakarta, Indonesia, on July 21, 2021. The cemetery, which is dedicated to COVID-19 victims, opened in March. Even though it can hold up to 7,200 people, the cemetery filled up fast during the surge in cases caused by the Delta variant—which made Indonesia an epicenter of the pandemic. In response, Jakarta's government planned to add more land to the 25-hectare cemetery.

Elaine Fields, with her daughter Etana Fields-Purdy, stand close to her husband's gravesite at the Elmwood Cemetary in Detroit, on June 14, 2020. Eddie Fields, a retired General Motors plant worker, had died from COVID-19 complications in April. "It's hard because we haven't been able to mourn,” Elaine told photographer Wayne Lawrence . “We weren't able to be with him or have a funeral, so our mourning has been stunted."

Detroit journalist Biba Adams stands for a portrait at her home with daughter Maria Williams and granddaughter Gia Williams in Detroit on June 10, 2020. Adams lost her mother, grandmother, and aunt to the coronavirus. “To lose one’s mother is one thing,” Adams said in late July 2020 , when U.S. pandemic death totals were pushing past 150,000. “To lose her as one of 150,000 people is even more painful. I don’t want her to just be a number. She had dreams, things she still wanted to do. She was a person. And I am going to lift her name up.”

Family members place flowers atop the coffin of Eric Hallett, 76, just before a hearse carries his body to the crematorium in Crewkerne, England, on May 4, 2020. Pandemic safety protocols forced the crematorium to limit the number of mourners at each funeral. Instead, Hallett’s loved ones lined the streets to wave goodbye.

Sisters Dana Cobbs and Darcey Cobbs-Lomax lost both their father and paternal grandmother to COVID-19 in April 2020. Evelyn Cobbs was rushed to the hospital in ambulances just one day after her son Morgan—and the two died within a week of one another. Photographer Celeste Sloman took this virtual portrait of the sisters, who had to say goodbye to their loved ones from a distance due to the restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic.

White flags planted on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. represent each of the American lives lost to COVID-19. When the art installation opened in September 2021, the country had surpassed 670,000 deaths. For more than 30 hours, photographer and National Geographic Explorer Stephen Wilkes watched people move through the sea of white flags , capturing individuals as they grappled with the enormity of loss. Wilkes took 4,882 photographs of the exhibit, then blended them into a single composite image as part of his Day to Night series.

Kristiana Nicole Bell attends a candlelight vigil at St. Margaret of Scotland Catholic Church in Foley, Alabama, where she was baptized later that evening. The service, held the night before Easter Sunday, was led in both English and Spanish by Father Paul Zohgby. He decided about eight years ago that it was important to learn Spanish so he could welcome and minister to the community’s growing Latino immigrant population. Zohgby told photographer Natalie Keyssar that he was elated to rejoin his congregation in person after spending eight days in the hospital with severe COVID-19.

Quarantined for two weeks after traveling from Belgium to Shanghai, Justin Jin reads out his temperature to a medic on the other side of his closed hotel door. The picture was taken through the door’s peephole. Jin made the arduous journey to see his father, who just had surgery.

Photographer Ian Teh spends much of his working life on the road—so the pandemic allowed him to stay home with his wife, Chloe Lim, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. “My partner and I are lucky that both our families are safe,” he says. “The pandemic has been an opportunity for us to connect with our loved ones, virtually.” He took this self-portrait of the couple in a favorite spot in their apartment, looking out on nearby houses and greenery. “It’s peaceful,” he says.

Heavy rain falls on Buenos Aires, Argentina, on April 27, 2020. Argentina entered a full lockdown on March 20 that endured more than four months. Feeling trapped, and still recovering from a miscarriage, photographer Sarah Pabst picked up her camera to document her pandemic experiences. The result: Morning Song , a project that uses photography to explore motherhood, love, and loss, and our connection with nature.

Greta Tanini and Cristoforo Lippi decided to take advantage of Italy's quarantine lockdown—to regard their enforced time together as a new exploration of their relationship. They divided up domestic tasks—including shopping, cleaning, and tidying up—and limited their social interaction to chatting with neighbors at a safe distance so as not to spread the virus.

The Apollo Theater has been a Harlem landmark since the 1930s, when it helped propel music genres such as jazz, R & B, and the blues into the American mainstream. The Apollo was one of New York City’s many historic entertainment venues that closed in early 2020 to stem the spread of COVID-19. It remained shuttered for a year and a half—and finally returned, to much excitement, in August 2021.

In spring 2020, sculptor Antonio Canova's The Three Graces (1812-1817) stand alone in the rotunda of Milan’s Galleria d’Italia. COVID-19 lockdowns forced museums across Europe to close their door for months— sparking fears that the loss of revenue might keep them permanently closed. By June, however, some museums began to reopen with limited numbers of visitors, temperature checks, and socially distant experiences.

Photographer Mariceu Erthal took this self-portrait in July 2020 during her first visit to the sea after being confined at home by COVID-19 lockdowns. She says the experience “brought me peace of mind and allowed me to observe the sadness and anxieties I had inside.”

Photographer Bethany Mollenkof found out she was pregnant three months before COVID-19 shut down swaths of the United States. She began to document her own experiences during quarantine in Los Angeles—from her first ultrasound, which her husband had to watch from the parking lot over FaceTime, to childbirth. Although Mollenkof had hoped for a natural birth, she decided to deliver in a hospital in case of complications—which proved the right choice. After her water broke, her contractions did not start, and ultimately labor was induced to keep the baby safe.

  “I thought about my friends, my community, and what it would feel like to become new parents in isolation—to not have people around us to help, people who years later could tell our daughter that they’d held her when she was a few days old,” Mollenkof wrote in a photo essay for National Geographic . “But I also thought about women throughout history, women who have survived wars, pandemics, miscarriages. Their resilience guided me.”

Exhausted after giving birth to her daughter, Suzette, Kim Bonsignore lies in the birthing pool in her living room on April 20, 2020, in New York City. Instead of having her baby in the hospital as planned, the Bonsignores decided to have their second child at home when they learned that family members would not be allowed in the delivery room because of COVID-19 restrictions.

In Moscow, a nurse wearing a hazmat suit holds a bouquet of flowers for at Hospital No. 52 on March 9, 2020—or Victory Day. Russia’s most important national holiday commemorates the surrender of Nazi Germany in 1945. Although celebrations were more subdued because of the pandemic, the hospital arranged a small tribute for veterans and their families under treatment.

Photographer Tamara Merino took this self-portrait with her son Ikal on the first day of total isolation in Santiago, Chile. “The confinement feels stronger and more overwhelming when someone imposes it on you,” she wrote. “When we have freedom over our actions, and we decide to stay home, we still feel free. Not anymore.”

Image of customers seen through a thermal scanner at the entrance of a supermarket in Ushuaia, the capital of Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. The vast majority of food on the island is imported, and shopping is centralized in big supermarket chains—creating a challenge for social distancing. During lockdown, thermal scanners were placed in the supermarkets to take the temperature of incoming customers. Customers with elevated temperatures were sent home.

Girls form a socially distant queue to take a shower at a facility in Kibera, an informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya. Most residents in the community do not have access to indoor plumbing, so a local organization provided free water to help prevent the spread of coronavirus by helping people maintain their personal hygiene.

An Istanbul city employee disinfects the streets of Beyoglu on April 14, 2020. Typically bustling with tourists intent on sampling its historic winehouses, museums, nightclubs and shops, the neighborhood fell quiet at the start of the pandemic. Many cities initially tried   to curb the spread of the coronavirus by spraying their walkways with disinfectant—a practice that the World Health Organization ultimately recommended against , as the chemicals were likely to harm people’s health.

Migrants climb onto a truck which will take them toward their village on the outskirts of Lucknow, India, on May 6, 2020. When the Indian government announced a nationwide lockdown on March 24, it requested that people stay put, wherever they were. But that created a shortage of food for the huge migrant population in cities—so, after much deliberation and implementation of new public safety measures, state governments coordinated efforts to transport the migrants to their homes on special trains.

Students resume in-person classes at Elementary School No. 1 in Jakarta, Indonesia. More than 600 schools across the city reopened on a limited basis in fall 2021, offering face-to-face classes three days a week with strict health protocols in place. Schools also restricted the number of students who could attend in person, with half of each class still learning from home via video conference. Nadiem Makarim, the Indonesian minister of education, pushed for a return to classrooms, telling parliament that COVID-19 lockdowns caused “learning losses that have permanent impacts.”

In a Pétion-Ville high school, a student distributes handmade masks to his classmates before classes begin. The pandemic disrupted education for children everywhere—but the crisis was particularly dire in Haiti, where students have also suffered gaps in their education as a result of social unrest and natural disasters. The Caribbean nation reopened many of its schools in August 2020 with public health measures like masking in place.

Aspiring insurance agents sit for their qualification exams at desks spread apart on a soccer field in South Korea on April 25, 2020. The Korea Life Insurance Association and the General Insurance Association of Korea were among the many public and private institutions that introduced socially distanced exams during the pandemic. It was a very windy day, but more than 18,000 people across Korea took the insurance agent exam—happy that they had resumed after a hiatus of more than two months.

Eighteen-year-old Stephen Onyango (center) teaches his brothers Collins and Gavan while their sister Genevieve Akinyi watches at their home in Kibera. They hadn't been to class since the Kenyan government closed all schools in the country in mid-March to curb the spread of COVID-19. Stephen told photographer Brian Otieno that his teacher suggested an app he could use to teach his siblings. “It's my responsibility to ensure that my brothers are at home studying now that coronavirus is here with us and we don't know when this will end,” he said. Kenya reopened schools in January 2021, even as the pandemic continued to spread.

Members of the Phi Beta Sigma fraternity gather for an impromptu step dance after Howard University's commencement ceremony in Washington, D.C., on May 8, 2021. Only undergraduate students were allowed to attend the outdoor, in-person ceremony held at the university’s stadium. Friends and family scattered around outside of the stadium instead.  

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“As I was bouncing around campus, I started to think about how much the students had been through the past year and how this particular moment must feel for them,” said photographer Jared Soares. “To be able to witness the students' jubilation was a huge privilege, and even more meaningful based on the circumstances that we as a community had to endure the past year and a half.”

Seoulites lounge on picnic mats in the grass at Ttukseom Hangang Park on a late summer weekend in 2021. Located under ring-shaped entry and exit ramps leading to a bridge and an expressway, the park is a popular gathering spot for young and old alike.

Nadia, one of the hosts of the talent quest TV show Afghan Star , interviews masked young women at a taping on February 18, 2021. As the Taliban moved to retake national control, Afghan Star ’s cast and crew came under serious threat—judges and participants had to stay at a safe house with armed security guards and blast walls until the end of the season. Kabul fell to the Taliban six months after this photograph was taken, leaving an uncertain future for Afghan women .

Berlin partygoers share a moment In a hallway of the Ritter Butzke, a venerable electronic music clubs, on August 28, 2021. Recently government-designated a German cultural institution, the Ritter Butzke—like other clubs with open air spaces— was approved last summer for public reopening . Some pandemic rules still apply: signs at the club urge patrons to wear masks and refrain from drinking on the dance floor.

Members of the Orquesta Sinfónica Gran Mariscal de Ayacucho play music from their new album, Sinfonía Desordenada (Disorderly Symphony), during an open-air performance on November 12, 2021 in Caracas, Venezuela. The album was recorded during the pandemic lockdown by 75 musicians who blended elements of classical music with Afro-Caribbean rhythms.

A boy flies his kite during lockdown in Amman, Jordan, in April 2020. For a few days in March, the government had imposed even tighter restrictions—shutting down nearly everything and instituting a 24-hour curfew backed up by tanks and army trucks, with no exceptions even to get food and medicine.  

Amman is built on hills, and from his kitchen, photographer Moises Saman could hear the echoes of citywide sirens, the kind used for air raid warnings. He stayed inside with his family until the curfews began to ease. Then he went to find the places where refugees live, including the neighborhood where this photograph was taken. Despite fears that their crowded settlements and neighborhoods would lead to uncontainable spread of COVID-19, Jordan's strict lockdown kept the pandemic at bay during its early months. But as lockdown measures eased, cases began to surge by the fall —a warning to all countries to remain vigilant.

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Together Apart: A COVID-19 photo essay by Cody Duty

Since the pandemic arrived in Houston, we have adapted to a new normal.

We have quarantined at home to keep ourselves and others safe.

We have visited drive-thru COVID-19 testing sites.

We have gone to work on the front lines of the pandemic.

We have celebrated the birthdays of loved ones with car parades.

We have submitted to thermal scanners that take our temperatures as we enter medical buildings.

We have said goodbye, temporarily, to our favorite restaurants and venues, until it is safe for us congregate again in large groups.

Texas Medical Center photojournalist Cody Duty has captured pandemic life with images that wring warmth and beauty from this devastating period in history.

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Friday essay: COVID in ten photos

Lecturer of art history, Griffith University

Disclosure statement

Chari Larsson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Griffith University provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU.

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Our memories are malleable, they change over time. Memories can, however, crystallise through repetition. One of the most interesting things about memory is it is distinctly visual. With time, dramatic events reduce to a series of still images, which psychologists call “ flashbulb memories ”. Retrieving them is akin to rifling through a visual database.

The history of war photography offers many powerful examples of how memory and photographic images work together to symbolise entire events.

Consider one of the most famous news images from the Vietnam War, Nick Ut’s image of nine-year old Phan Thị Kim Phúc , badly burned and running down the road after a napalm attack. Or the Abu Ghraib photographs of prisoner abuse in the American military .

Viruses are distinctly anti-spectacular. They are invisible. We can, nevertheless, capture their impact. In 1990, at the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis in America, Life magazine published an image of a dying man, David Kirby, surrounded by his anguished family. Therese Frare’s photograph was credited for humanising HIV and raising much needed awareness.

We are still in the early days of this pandemic. It is not too premature, however, to start writing its history through images. Here are some of the photos that captured the impact of COVID-19 in Australia.

The Ruby Princess stranded

Networks of globalisation, such as the tourism industry, helped spread the virus between countries. This image was taken from the Waverley Cemetery, in Sydney’s east in early April. Tightly framed by gravestones, the Ruby Princess cruise ship intersects with the strong blue of the horizon.

Sydney is reimagined as an ancient burial site, a necropolis, a city of the dead.

It is not unusual for cruise liners to sit off the city’s coast. This photograph is chilling, however because of the large cluster of COVID-19 infections linked to this ship. When Joel Carrett took this photograph, passengers had already disembarked, and health authorities were scrambling to control community transmission.

Sometimes, images are powerful because they have long historical links. Ships have historically been carriers of disease, treated suspiciously by coastal towns and ports.

During the height of the Black Death in the 14th century, the citizens of Venice realised infected persons were on ships and the best defence was isolation. The modern term quarantine is derived from the Italian quaranta giorni , the 40 days vessels were kept offshore.

Read more: Fleas to flu to coronavirus: how 'death ships' spread disease through the ages

Bondi Beach crowds

We were still learning how to socially distance in March and adhere to the government’s advice to “stay at home” when images of beach-lovers making the most of Sydney’s glorious Indian summer went viral on social media.

The beach occupies a sacred place in our national psyche: a place of leisure and of freedom. What was ominous about this image, however, was the crowd’s ability to render a usually benign activity into a menacing threat.

Centrelink queue, Sydney

The most visceral signs of an economy in free fall came in late March with long queues of people waiting outside Centrelink offices across the country. As the myGov website collapsed under the strain, people were forced onto the streets, echoing scenes from Depression-era unemployment .

This photograph is cropped, leaving the viewer’s eye to run down the line of umbrellas, before pausing to rest on the woman in the yellow jumper and clear poncho. Her body language speaks of exasperation and frustration.

The image is taken at street level, a powerful levelling effect: the spectator joins the queue.

A very different strategy is at play in this 1932 image of the dole queue at Sydney’s Harold Park. Here, the photographer captures the group from an elevated position. This creates the effect of “hovering” above the queue like a bird. The spectator remains separate and apart from the crowd. The telegraph pole reinforces this division.

Panic buying, Coles supermarket

In March, supermarket shelves were emptying as Australians started panic buying essentials such as toilet paper, pasta and rice.

The idea of an image being active and capable of influencing our behaviour is underscored by photographs of empty supermarket shelves. Images such as these helped fuel further panic buying, reinforcing the misconception we were running out of food.

Read more: Disagreeability, neuroticism and stress: what drives panic buying during the COVID-19 pandemic

In this image, the bare shelves retreat, drawing the spectator’s eye diagonally backwards towards the far wall. People wait patiently while maintaining a careful distance from each other. The spectator’s eye returns to rest with the central seated figure. His posture indicates fatigued resignation.

Panic buying is not unprecedented in Australia. During World War II, food and clothing rationing was introduced to control consumption and ensure equitable distribution of resources.

This archival image shows people in Melbourne stocking up on meat in 1944 in advance of impending rationing. The small enclosed space feels claustrophobic as shoppers crowd in, waiting to be served.

Public housing towers lockdown, Melbourne

Physical distancing is a luxury not everyone can afford. COVID-19 thrives in dense living spaces, making visible class and race divisions. The early July lockdown of nine public housing towers in Melbourne was a blunt reminder the pandemic embeds itself in communities that house some of our most vulnerable. The towers were presented as crime scenes, sealed off with police tape.

David Crosling’s photograph is striking because of its distinct lack of people. The police tape occupies the immediate foreground, while the towers rise threateningly in the distance.

On closer inspection, a solitary figure can be detected in the left middle ground. The pathway leads the viewer’s eye straight to a COVID-19 testing tent. The site is registered as a crime scene; a barrier is placed between the spectator and the towers.

The absence of people became a foreboding sign of what was to come: Melbourne’s “hard lockdown”.

Empty Melbourne CBD

The atmosphere is bleak and unnerving. An empty city is a lonely city. A city needs its people. Today, the usually bustling alleyways in Melbourne’s CBD lie mute, waiting for the stage four restrictions to pass.

An eerie quality emerges when architectural landscapes are silent and empty. Usually an index of vitality, the street art in the foreground of the image is transformed, becoming a trace or relic of former human activity.

Images of Melbourne devoid of its people resonate with Eugène Atget ’s photographs of the “old Paris”. Working at the turn of the 20th century, Atget focused on documenting the old, disappearing streets of Paris under pressure to modernise.

Writing in the 1930s, German philosopher and essayist Walter Benjamin observed Atget’s images were like deserted crime scenes “photographed for the purpose of establishing evidence”.

They demand a specific kind of approach; free-floating contemplation is not appropriate to them. They stir the viewer; he feels challenged by them in a new way.

A crime scene asks more from its spectator than just viewing passively. Instead, the spectator becomes a witness or bystander.

Read more: Friday essay: the uncanny melancholy of empty photographs in the time of coronavirus

Face mask and face shield

As the virus asserts its grip, the face mask has now become a symbol of the next phase of our collective efforts to suppress COVID-19.

The practice of wearing a mask in the times of disease and pandemics has a long history. The medieval Latin word masca ominously means “spectre or nightmare”.

In the 17th century, plague doctors were recognised by their distinctive beak-like masks when attending sick patients, protecting the doctors from “bad air” and preventing contagion.

Centuries on, the basic premise of creating a barrier between the patient and the health workforce remains remarkably the same.

Temporary memorial, St Basil’s Homes for the Aged

Australia has avoided the rampant transmission and devastating loss of life seen in parts of Europe, the USA and Brazil. Our mortality rates, nevertheless, are steadily creeping upwards as the pandemic spreads, particularly in aged care facilities.

We haven’t seen images like the overflowing intensive care wards in Italy , or the drone footage of New York’s mass graves . For privacy and ethical reasons, photographs from inside aged care homes and intensive care wards are rare. Our understanding of the deaths is thus shaped by personal photographs of COVID-19’s victims released by their families or photos of the exteriors of aged care homes.

In late July, temporary memorials were set up outside one of the hardest hit facilities, St Basil’s Home for the Aged. Here, fences create a barrier between the photographer and the buildings. For the viewer, the physicality of lockdown is reinforced.

Healthcare workers in PPE

Frontline health workers in full personal protective equipment have largely become the face of COVID-19.

Widespread testing is proving crucial to controlling the pandemic. Here, healthcare workers are captured working at a drive through clinic. The camera’s lens is focused on the middle ground, with the staff rendered crisply in silhouette. Healthcare workers are our first and last line of defence against COVID-19.

There is unlikely to be one single photograph that comes to symbolise the pandemic. But it is possible to start reflecting on images that have been instrumental in shaping policy and debate.

These images serve as a chronicle of the disorientating early days of COVID-19 in Australia.

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About the Project

Every person on every continent has been affected by COVID-19. But as the world reels from the devastation caused by this unprecedented crisis, how much is known and documented about the grave and far-reaching repercussions on the lives and livelihoods of millions of people?

COVID-19: The Bigger Picture uses the power of photography and journalism to bring to the world’s attention stories of how those most vulnerable to the pandemic are being impacted – stories that are often untold or overlooked.

Photo Competition

Could your picture tell a thousand words? Then the camera is in your hands. Our photo competition is open to anyone with a passion for turning the lens on the real lives behind the headlines, and an ability to capture the most powerful images of the pandemic’s impact on everyday people.

Photo Essays

When everyone is consumed by just one conversation, some voices struggle to be heard. Often these belong to the most vulnerable people in the world, hit hardest by the severity of the pandemic. Our world-class journalists have expertise in telling their stories.

The United States has been decimated by the crisis. We’ll be bringing you a series of five photo essays over the next three months, each shining a spotlight on different themes and different states.

Sign up to be notified when the next photo essay is released.

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Washington DC

The gig workers struggling to be heard in the U.S. capital amid COVID-19.

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• Signs of the Times: Public Displays at the Height of the COVID-19 Pandemic

From politics and the pandemic to Halloween and graduation, 2020 was notable for its proliferation of citizen signage. This photo essay provides a time capsule of the COVID-19 era in West Philadelphia. 

By Kelly Diaz

Like so many people did during those days of fear and uncertainty that marked the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, I brought home a puppy. A “cavachon” (Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and Bichon Frise mix), Matilda (“Tillie”) was eight weeks old when I got her in May 2020, and while she was potty training, she needed up to 10 walks a day.

It was frustrating for me to spend so much time of the day away from my computer, taking breaks that the diligent graduate student in me did not think I had earned.

But I took comfort in Tanya Behrisch’s “Slow” philosophy . In reference to the time she spent cooking for herself and loved ones, she explains:

“Rather than viewing those hours in neoliberal time as ‘lost hours’ I want to shift to a Slow appreciation of ‘gained hours.’ [...] Care work requires Slowing down, taking time to notice what should be done, for whom, when, and how. The Slow movement invites me to explore this relational process through research, writing, and embodied practice of cooking for others (p. 3).”

With this in mind, I realized my puppy would never be so young and impressionable again. Each day she got older, bigger, and more independent. Work would always be there needing my attention, but my precious fur baby would not. 

Throughout some of the hardest and most stressful months of my life, I was cheered up by the fresh air, Tillie’s adorable sidewalk strut, and the messages my neighbors displayed in the windows, balconies, porches, and yards of residential buildings and storefronts. I began to consider the visual messaging on graffiti, memorial displays, flyers, and other citizen signage.

Between May and December of 2020, I took photographs of these displays on my iPhone as I walked Tillie through the streets of West Philadelphia, in particular the University City and Spruce Hill neighborhoods. You will find a gallery of these images below.  

A Constellation of Issues

In a Slate.com article about the trend of posting signs in the early months of the pandemic, journalist Henry Grabar wrote, “Chicago is empty of people but full of signs [...] Every city is like this now, as if our protective masks stifled the ability to speak and left us to communicate only in writing.”

As those who lived through 2020 recall, there was no shortage of fodder for signage.

The pandemic coincided with a presidential election, which exponentially increased the degree to which people were displaying a national identity and concern. 

Another significant percentage of the signs expressed “thank you” messages for essential workers who were continuing to leave their homes and risk COVID exposure to keep the community running. These were, at times, bright and uplifting artwork to demonstrate one’s positive outlook in the midst of crisis and tragedy.

As protests against racial injustice and anti-Blackness in the United States grew, many residents in my neighborhood displayed either homemade or commercially manufactured Black Lives Matter signs to demonstrate an intolerance for violence and discrimination against Black Americans. 

Performing One’s Values

Signs are both display and performance, a way that people articulate their definition of self as someone who takes public health seriously and is community-oriented.

Just as many of the themes overlapped, so too did the media. Images that were made by hand with markers or crayons and hung in windows may have also been photographed and uploaded to Instagram or Facebook. Similarly, the immediate intended audience might be passersby, but it could also be one’s own social media followers or the extended networks of anyone who walks by and takes a picture as I did, and now share with you in the gallery below.

As I took these photos, I thought about Erving Goffman’s 1959 book, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life . It helped me to see the signs as a means of performing identity, gratitude, care, and allyship. This is not to say that the displays are not genuine, but rather that they are calculated and intentional attempts to put forward into the world an image of oneself through a visual. Goffman writes:

“The individual may attempt to induce the audience to judge him and the situation in a particular way, and he may seek this judgment as an ultimate end in itself, and yet he may not completely believe that he deserves the valuation of self which he asks for or that the impression or reality which he fosters is valid (p. 21).”

Indeed, I saw many signs that seem to have been made and displayed in order to have an audience “judge” (in a positive sense) the person or household sharing that message or “performance.” I imagine that some of my neighbors hoped to be viewed by passersby as anti-racists or feminists or Biden/Harris supporters.

As Goffman suggests, however, many might have found that even after creating the display of care or identity they still felt guilty or insecure about their place in our deeply flawed society. This was certainly true of myself. 

What Goes Unseen

Performative allyship has been critiqued widely as a phenomenon wherein people seek attention for their support for justice without doing actual justice work. While I recognize this problem, I can also see merits to the displays of allyship in this context. After all, performing allyship is not in itself a problem, if accompanied by action.  

As a new member of the community, it was comforting and affirming to see my neighbors’ values on display through this signage. While I recognized the many problematic ways that people have engaged in virtue signaling, in this case, I wanted my neighbors to signal their virtues to me. If I wanted to know, for example, that it was safe to wear my Pride shirt around the neighborhood, I could find my answer in many of the signs displayed by my neighbors. 

I thought about the labor and care people took to make homemade signs, though this does not necessarily point to further social action. I also thought about how it would be easy to judge someone for simply displaying a commercially made sign, though at times those signs come as a result of a donation to a justice organization. In this case, people displaying them have “put their money where their mouth is” and directly supported the cause.

Assigning motivation was, of course, impossible. In these times of social distancing, I was unable to pair the displays of allyship through signage with discussions with the creators about their social justice work. It was also not clear which signs came from allies and which came from people directly impacted.

Politics on Display

While lawn and window signs are common every election season, I do wonder if there was an increase in signage to compensate for the loss of other forms of political identity and candidate support during physical distancing. For example, people who usually wear campaign t-shirts, pins, and hats might have instead opted for a sign that they could display from the safety of their home, while still reaching an audience.

The signs were also a reflection of our local political leanings. The prevalence of Black Lives Matter, Biden/Harris signs, and COVID-19 safety signs was notable in the absence of signage in support of police, the Trump/Pence administration, or claims that COVID-19 was a hoax to be ignored.

The few times I left the community this summer I found myself in areas with large numbers of Blue Lives Matter products, signs demanding that the government reopen restaurants and shops, and Trump 2020 flags.

The difference in my degree of safety and comfort as a queer woman of color was palpable in those communities versus in my own, and I was proud to see the intolerance of racism, homophobia, and other forms of discrimination on display amongst West Philadelphia residents — acknowledging, of course, that these generalizations do not apply to all residents.

Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times

Another thing that caught my attention were the contrasts in subject matter. While people were mourning the loss of lives and experiences due to COVID-19 and white supremacy, people were also celebrating graduations and holidays. Once mundane Halloween decorations such as tombstones and skeletons took on a new meaning for me when I encountered them during a period of mass death. 

While people were calling for police abolition, they were also expressing gratitude for postal and sanitation workers who had been working through frustrating budget cuts and high COVID-19 risk.

The images also demonstrated the ways in which mundane and regular tasks persisted even throughout the COVID crisis. People continued to grab coffee at the local café, get their flu shots, and wash their clothes at the laundromat, even as the logistics of these tasks changed greatly.

Although many photographs below captured similar displays, no two photos are identical. Even when signs were exactly the same in content, they varied in terms of placement, materiality, size, and many other factors. 

This collection is useful even in 2020 as a way to understand West Philadelphia residents in 2020, and it will likely be even more valuable in future years as a time capsule. While I took these photos without asking for permission, I hope that by sharing them, I am honoring the West Philadelphia community that gave me a warm welcome and offered me a home during some of the most difficult months of my life. 

Kelly Diaz is a doctoral candidate at the Annenberg School for Communication.

West Philadelphia During COVID

Use the arrows to scroll through photos taken by Kelly Diaz on her iPhone between May and December of 2020.

Photo Essay Captures How COVID-19 Has Transformed BU

A darkened hallway in the College of Arts & Sciences, March 18. BU buildings have been largely vacant since the University moved all teaching and learning remotely on March 16 in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Photo by Cydney Scott

Images document the subtle—and not so subtle—ways the pandemic has altered campus

Bu today staff.

From the moment the University announced that starting March 16 it was moving to remote teaching and learning for the rest of the spring semester, then shuttered residences for most students as of March 22, BU campuses took on a startlingly different look, transformed overnight from bustling metropolises to a series of largely empty interior and exterior landscapes. 

Staff photojournalists Cydney Scott and Jackie Ricciardi have continued to photograph the campuses since the pandemic caused the city of Boston to limit the normal operations of businesses, even as most students have returned home and most faculty and staff are working remotely.

“As a photographer for BU Today, the biggest danger I usually face at work is whether or not I’ll squeeze into a spot on the BU shuttle on my way to an assignment on a rainy day,” Scott says. “Photographing Comm Ave during the midst of a pandemic brings risks of a different, more frightening order.” The two maintain a safe social distance when shooting their subjects—which brings new challenges. “Where I would typically move around during a shoot, being a ‘fly on the wall,’ my movement now is largely limited,” she says.

“Photographing during the pandemic has been a struggle for me,” says Ricciardi. “As a photojournalist, my goal is to capture human connection, and I wonder how I can do that successfully when the streets are empty and we’re told we must stay away from people…yet one of the most significant  events in history is happening in my lifetime and it’s my responsibility to try and capture that.”

Their images will serve to chronicle this moment in history for years to come.

Meredith Siegel (left) and Rachel Reiser, both Questrom assistant deans, practice social distancing while prepping for a “dean’s huddle” meeting via Zoom on March 16. Photo by Cydney Scott

A sign posted outside the College of Communication  student lounge March 16. Photo by Cydney Scott

Bruno Rubio, a College of Arts & Sciences master lecturer in chemistry, holding remote office hours in a Metcalf Science Center lecture hall March 17. “I was old-school with my teaching,” says Rubio, “My clinging to traditional methods of learning and teaching? I’m paying for it now!” In fact, he mastered Zoom quickly and was able to assist the eight students who needed help that day. Photo by Cydney Scott

An eerily empty FitRec basketball court on March 17. FitRec closed that day. Photo by Cydney Scott

Paradise Rock Club assistant production manager Will Powell posting an encouraging message on the club’s marquee March 17. The Paradise is closed indefinitely because of the coronavirus pandemic, like all the commonwealth’s bars, restaurants, and entertainment spots. Photo by Cydney Scott

COM staff members on video screens in the school’s Zimmerman Social Media Activation Center during a Zoom meeting March 17. Photo by Cydney Scott

BU custodian Grace Araujo at work at StuVi I on March 17. BU’s custodial staff continues to clean and maintain BU’s 300 buildings during the pandemic. Photo by Jackie Ricciardi

Victory Innovations battery-operated electrostatic spray guns are prized by custodial workers for their deep cleaning ability. BU invested in about 20 of the spray guns, which are in such high demand now that they are almost impossible to get. Photo by Jackie Ricciardi

The first day of remote learning: a lone student studying at Mugar Memorial Library on March 16. The library is now closed to students, but staff continue to provide support and services remotely. Photo by Jackie Ricciardi

Entering the George Sherman Union on March 16 (left) and finding it almost empty on March 18 (right) must have been surreal experiences. Fewer than 450 students remain in BU housing at present. Photos by Jackie Ricciardi (left) and Cydney Scott (right)

Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, dean of Marsh Chapel, on his way to the chapel’s first virtual Sunday service on March 22. The eight choral scholars on the altar are six feet apart during the service. Photos by Cydney Scott 

A triage tent for intake of potential coronavirus patients set up outside Boston Medical Center March 20. BMC nurses Marisa McIntyre (left) and Maureen Shanahan-Frappie are among staff there who assess patients’ symptoms and determine whether they should be sent to BMC’s influenza-like illness clinic (ILI) for moderate symptoms or to the Emergency Department for more serious conditions. COVID-19 testing is done at both. Photo by Cydney Scott

Except for exceptional cases, most students living on campus had to be out of their rooms by March 22. Xing Hu (CAS’22) (left) waits with Abin George (ENG’23) outside Claflin Hall to be picked up March 20. Photo by Cydney Scott

Goodbyes: Northeastern freshman Nadhur Prashant (left) with his girlfriend, Anindita Lal (CAS’23), on West Campus March 20.  Lal was returning  home to Acton, Mass., and Prashant was leaving Boston to go home to India. Photo by Cydney Scott

Bicycles and strewn moving carts in the courtyard between 722 and 726 Comm Ave on March 25, after dorms were shuttered. Photo by Cydney Scott

Millyan Phillips of Piece by Piece Moving Company empties a room on the Fenway Campus’ Riverway House March 27. Students who had left belongings behind when they went on spring break were able to use an app to specify items they wanted stored, saved, or thrown out. Photo by Cydney Scott

An abandoned Fenway Campus Center, bereft of its usual throngs of students, on April 15. The 150 Riverway building houses the campus dining hall and common student spaces as well as student residences. Photo by Jackie Ricciardi

A flyer reminding residents to maintain social distance guidelines, left on a Fenway Campus Center table. Photo by Jackie Ricciardi

Left photo: Quarantine kits lined up in the GSU Ballroom on April 15. The kits, containing two weeks’ worth of cleaning supplies, paper goods, pillows, linens, and nonperishable snacks and meals, were available to students quarantined on campus because of exposure to COVID-19. Right photo: Jennifer Skikas (left), GSU catering sales manager, and Joann Flores, catering manager for Questrom, load up some of the items to be delivered to empty quarantine rooms across campus on April 21. Photos by Cydney Scott

Lead custodian Carlos Carreiro (left) and custodian Andres Lopez deliver paper goods to empty quarantine rooms at 580 Comm Ave April 21. The University reserved approximately 50 rooms across campus for students who needed to be quarantined during the pandemic. Photo by Cydney Scott

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There are 7 comments on Photo Essay Captures How COVID-19 Has Transformed BU

Jackie and Cydney, wonderful yet weird campus shots. Thank you for being on site capturing this for us.

Thank you, Cydney and Jackie, for these images that capture so many elements of BU during this difficult time of grieving for the world, and caring for each other. You make us proud, even prouder, of BU people!

Thanks for Cydney and Jackie’s excellenct and memorable work with these capturing photos! my son is still in BU for his master degree study and will finish his study by May. Our family apprecaites all the work and effort by BU during this special and difficult period. We are proud my son is a student of BU!

Wow! Great images. Your photos tell a very moving story. You also managed to capture an image of my son studying in the library. He is the lone student at the Mugar Memorial Library. Can you please let me know how I can buy a copy of that image? Thank you.

Great work. Is there a way that I can get a copy Of one of the images. My son is in that photo.

Shoot me an email Dina and I’ll see what we can do. Cydney [email protected]

Fantastic photography & story, thank you for sharing! Our son never had the chance to return to BU after spring break, so to see what BU looks like now is very moving. Our family is grateful to all the BU staff, faculty & students and look forward to the day we can visit Boston again!

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'COVID-19 Threw a Curve Ball at Us': Student Photo Essays Document Life During a Pandemic

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“We wanted a senior year for the record books, and we got it! … Just not for the reason we expected. COVID-19 threw a curve ball at us, but we’ve made it our mission to find happiness in different places.”

With these words, Duke student Nneka Nwabueze begins a photo essay of student life during the pandemic. It’s part of a class project Digital Documentary Photography: Education, Childhood, and Growth (DOCTST 209S / FS), a Center for Documentary Studies course taught by Susie Post-Rust. Students created essays showcasing how they used documentary photography to explore topics such as essential workers, anti-racism work, the economy and more.

“At the  Center for Documentary Studies   we have been committed to making art that reflects this unusual time in our collective history,” Post-Rust said. “This semester was not the norm, and these students rose to the challenge! They turned their cameras to the issues of this moment, ranging from responses to coronavirus to Black Lives Matter and even the effort to find identity or normalcy in this moment.  Our class was held remotely, and students attended from as far away as southern California or Maine and from as close as campus. Throughout the semester, each student documented their project in an effort to be AWAKE to this moment in history.”

The class was held in conjunction with Duke Service-Learning. To see the photos, created two portfolio sites,  Colored by COVID and  College with COVID .

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Eleven student documentary films about women in politics, link to this page.

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‘Where We Are’: A Photo Essay Contest for Exploring Community

Using an immersive Times series as inspiration, we invite teenagers to document the local communities that interest them. Contest dates: Feb. 14 to March 20.

By The Learning Network

Update, June 6: We plan to announce the winners early next week.

The Covid-19 pandemic closed schools and canceled dances. It emptied basketball courts, theaters, recreation centers and restaurants. It sent clubs, scout troops and other groups online.

Now, many people have ventured back out into physical spaces to gather with one another once again. What does in-person “community” look like today? And what are the different ways people are creating it?

In this new contest, inspired by “ Where We Are ” — an immersive visual project from The New York Times that explores the various places around the world where young people come together — we’re inviting teenagers to create their own photo essays to document the local, offline communities that interest them.

Take a look at the full guidelines and related resources below to see if this is right for your students. We have also posted a student forum and a step-by-step lesson plan . Please ask any questions you have in the comments and we’ll answer you there, or write to us at [email protected]. And, consider hanging this PDF one-page announcement on your class bulletin board.

Here’s what you need to know:

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Photo essay: Faces of the Pandemic

• Features Photo essay: Metamorphosis A place of pride for pathology labs Lessons from COVID-19 No shortcut to success Keeping air free of COVID Not an academic question A year-long homework assignment Accelerating Communication between Scientists Photo essay: Faces of the Pandemic Shedding new light on an underacknowledged epidemic Catching a dream
• News A reunion to remember A coup for comparative medicine Prisoners of broken systems
• People Generations of medical expertise A historian of medical futures looks back Yale’s Senior Advisor to the FDA Commissioner The next wave of physician-entrepreneurs
• Dialogue The Lost Art of Dying: Reviving Forgotten Wisdom Keeping our stories for the future A unified response You have to have empathy

A pandemic photo essay

Anusha sundararajan, cesar vazquez, sandra johnson, hiam naiditch, merceditas villanueva, felipe lopez, alice lu-culligan, leah tenenbaum.

Faces of the Pandemic is an ongoing portrait photography project documenting the experiences of essential health care workers throughout the pandemic—an unprecedented time for Yale’s medical community, the nation, and the world. It is meant to show appreciation for these individuals and provide a platform for them to share their stories.

Representing a variety of roles at Yale School of Medicine and Yale New Haven Hospital, each participant is photographed wearing their typical work attire, including PPE. Formal portraits display respect for the subjects while candids capture their range of emotions. The photos have been minimally edited to maintain a documentary feel.

Each participant answered five questions to catalogue their experience of the pandemic. For Yale Medicine Magazine we’ve chosen to highlight a common thread: The pandemic has…

Allaire Bartel Creative Direction; Anthony DeCarlo Photography.

Photo Essay: New York Empties Amid COVID-19

In New York City, photographer Kit Castagne captures the empty streets as COVID-19 takes it's toll on the city.

A woman sits in the ridges of the usually bustling Oculus, a shopping mall located across from the temporarily closed World Trade Center memorial site.

As seen from inside The Oculus, the same woman rests against her bags and blankets.

A cyclist crosses an empty 10th Avenue in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood. Devoid of traffic, those few cyclists and pedestrians still outside often spill into the empty roadways, no longer confined to sidewalks and bike lanes.

A homeless woman sits outside the closed down Nike store on 5th Avenue. With the usual crowds of shoppers, commuters and tourists gone, Manhattan’s homeless population has grown more visible than ever in the wake of COVID-19.

Across the city, parks and public spaces are an escape for those confined to small apartments, but many remain closed due public health concerns.

Only a select few of The Oculus shopping mall’s stores remain open. The usual throngs of shoppers have been reduced to a sparse few PATH train passengers and passers-by.

Usually bumper to bumper with taxis, Grand Central Terminal’s Park Avenue bridge sits empty.

In stark contrast to Grand Central’s routinely ceaseless crowds of tourists and commuters, the station is all but empty, while its shops, stalls, and restaurants all stand shuttered.

With no tourists around to drive trade, a souvenir shop near Times Square closes down and boards up.

A woman walks across the Oculus’ empty atrium.

Chairs stacked in the window of Panchito’s, a Mexican restaurant in the West Village which had to close its doors in response to the city’s order banning dining in restaurants.

The owner of Cafe Reggio, an Italian cafe in the West Village, describes his business’ struggles in transitioning to take-out only. He remarked that he had only served "seven ninety's" worth of food that day. He then clarified that he meant $7.90, not $790.

A worker at a Midtown florist disinfects the company’s delivery van.

The day before restaurants switched to take-out and delivery only, a couple sits down to eat at Little Italy Pizza in Midtown.

Unable to seat customers, a worker in Manhattan’s Extra Virgin makes repairs to the upholstery of the restaurant's seating.

Joan, a West Village resident sits outside her building waiting for her neighbor to help take her shopping. She said anywhere would be better than Manhattan during a pandemic, but that she is here now, and doesn't know where else she would go. She has relatives upstate, but the journey to them seems too arduous. She said she's been in New York a long time, and that New York is where she will stay.

The owner of H&H Kim corporation stands outside her SoHo grocery store. Across manhattan, shopkeepers spend a great deal of time waiting in empty stores. Upon the eventual arrival of customers some show relief, glad to have the business. Others are clearly nervous about the risk of infection. Most show an anxious mix of the two.

At a farmer’s market in Union Square, crowds still gather despite social distancing directives. Shoppers and workers alike do their best to carry on as normal, but with a tangible sense of fear and heightened nerves.

A father teaches his children to ride their bikes at an unusually empty athletic court in the West Village.

The standard life of a cyclist on the Brooklyn Bridge is crawling at a snail’s pace, dodging and weaving between tourists stood shoulder to shoulder. With foot traffic all but gone, cyclists travel the length of the bridge like a bicycle freeway.

In a city of tiny apartments, the closing of gyms brings has left public spaces the only viable places for many to exercise.

With no cars on the streets of SoHo, a father plays frisbee with his daughters in the middle of the cobblestone road.

A woman sits in a sparsely populated Washington Square Park.

A security worker sits behind protective glass at the D.E.A building in the now empty Meatpacking District.

At the Trader Joe’s in Brooklyn’s Cobble Hill, the line for entry stretches around the block with shoppers spaced at six foot intervals.

Across from St. Vincent’s Hospital, delivery workers sort through the packages destined for the surrounding buildings.

A delivery cyclist with his e-bike takes a break in the West Village.

Prior to New York State’s moratorium on non-essential construction, a worker monitors a building site just south of Central Park.

A homeless man rests on a bench in Times Square.

Kit Castagne is a freelance photojournalist and documentary photographer based in Brooklyn. Before relocating to New York, he called Boston home for seven years, where he documented the lives of independent musicians in the city’s underground music scene. When the early stages of the Coronavirus outbreak forced the cancellation of concerts and tours across the country, Kit shifted his attention to documenting the effects of the virus as it took hold in New York City. Kit’s work has been published in a number of outlets including Vogue and The New York Times.

All photos are courtesy Kit Castagne. www.kitcastagne.com @kit_castagne

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Photo Essay: Under COVID lockdown: How we lived four years ago

• Published Mar 19, 2024

Reuters Four years ago our lives changed forever as much of the world locked down to curb the spread of the COVID pandemic. Click here to see photo essay

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COVID-19 photo essay: We’re all in this together

About the author, department of global communications.

The United Nations Department of Global Communications (DGC) promotes global awareness and understanding of the work of the United Nations.

23 June 2020 – The COVID-19 pandemic has  demonstrated the interconnected nature of our world – and that no one is safe until everyone is safe.  Only by acting in solidarity can communities save lives and overcome the devastating socio-economic impacts of the virus.  In partnership with the United Nations, people around the world are showing acts of humanity, inspiring hope for a better future. 

Everyone can do something    

Rauf Salem, a volunteer, instructs children on the right way to wash their hands, in Sana'a, Yemen.  Simple measures, such as maintaining physical distance, washing hands frequently and wearing a mask are imperative if the fight against COVID-19 is to be won.  Photo: UNICEF/UNI341697

Creating hope

Venezuelan refugee Juan Batista Ramos, 69, plays guitar in front of a mural he painted at the Tancredo Neves temporary shelter in Boa Vista, Brazil to help lift COVID-19 quarantine blues.  “Now, everywhere you look you will see a landscape to remind us that there is beauty in the world,” he says.  Ramos is among the many artists around the world using the power of culture to inspire hope and solidarity during the pandemic.  Photo: UNHCR/Allana Ferreira

Inclusive solutions

Wendy Schellemans, an education assistant at the Royal Woluwe Institute in Brussels, models a transparent face mask designed to help the hard of hearing.  The United Nations and partners are working to ensure that responses to COVID-19 leave no one behind.  Photo courtesy of Royal Woluwe Institute

Humanity at its best

Maryna, a community worker at the Arts Centre for Children and Youth in Chasiv Yar village, Ukraine, makes face masks on a sewing machine donated by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and civil society partner, Proliska.  She is among the many people around the world who are voluntarily addressing the shortage of masks on the market. Photo: UNHCR/Artem Hetman

Keep future leaders learning

A mother helps her daughter Ange, 8, take classes on television at home in Man, Côte d'Ivoire.  Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, caregivers and educators have responded in stride and have been instrumental in finding ways to keep children learning.  In Côte d'Ivoire, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) partnered with the Ministry of Education on a ‘school at home’ initiative, which includes taping lessons to be aired on national TV and radio.  Ange says: “I like to study at home.  My mum is a teacher and helps me a lot.  Of course, I miss my friends, but I can sleep a bit longer in the morning.  Later I want to become a lawyer or judge."  Photo: UNICEF/UNI320749

Global solidarity

People in Nigeria’s Lagos State simulate sneezing into their elbows during a coronavirus prevention campaign.  Many African countries do not have strong health care systems.  “Global solidarity with Africa is an imperative – now and for recovering better,” said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.  “Ending the pandemic in Africa is essential for ending it across the world.” Photo: UNICEF Nigeria/2020/Ojo

A new way of working

Henri Abued Manzano, a tour guide at the United Nations Information Service (UNIS) in Vienna, speaks from his apartment.  COVID-19 upended the way people work, but they can be creative while in quarantine.  “We quickly decided that if visitors can’t come to us, we will have to come to them,” says Johanna Kleinert, Chief of the UNIS Visitors Service in Vienna.  Photo courtesy of Kevin Kühn

Life goes on

Hundreds of millions of babies are expected to be born during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Fionn, son of Chloe O'Doherty and her husband Patrick, is among them.  The couple says: “It's all over.  We did it.  Brought life into the world at a time when everything is so uncertain.  The relief and love are palpable.  Nothing else matters.”  Photo: UNICEF/UNI321984/Bopape

Putting meals on the table

Sudanese refugee Halima, in Tripoli, Libya, says food assistance is making her life better.  COVID-19 is exacerbating the existing hunger crisis.  Globally, 6 million more people could be pushed into extreme poverty unless the international community acts now.  United Nations aid agencies are appealing for more funding to reach vulnerable populations.  Photo: UNHCR

Supporting the frontlines

The United Nations Air Service, run by the World Food Programme (WFP), distributes protective gear donated by the Jack Ma Foundation and Alibaba Group, in Somalia. The United Nations is using its supply chain capacity to rapidly move badly needed personal protective equipment, such as medical masks, gloves, gowns and face-shields to the frontline of the battle against COVID-19. Photo: WFP/Jama Hassan  

S7-Episode 2: Bringing Health to the World

“You see, we're not doing this work to make ourselves feel better. That sort of conventional notion of what a do-gooder is. We're doing this work because we are totally convinced that it's not necessary in today's wealthy world for so many people to be experiencing discomfort, for so many people to be experiencing hardship, for so many people to have their lives and their livelihoods imperiled.”

Dr. David Nabarro has dedicated his life to global health. After a long career that’s taken him from the horrors of war torn Iraq, to the devastating aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami, he is still spurred to action by the tremendous inequalities in global access to medical care.

“The thing that keeps me awake most at night is the rampant inequities in our world…We see an awful lot of needless suffering.”

:: David Nabarro interviewed by Melissa Fleming

Brazilian ballet pirouettes during pandemic

Ballet Manguinhos, named for its favela in Rio de Janeiro, returns to the stage after a long absence during the COVID-19 pandemic. It counts 250 children and teenagers from the favela as its performers. The ballet group provides social support in a community where poverty, hunger and teen pregnancy are constant issues.

Radio journalist gives the facts on COVID-19 in Uzbekistan

The pandemic has put many people to the test, and journalists are no exception. Coronavirus has waged war not only against people's lives and well-being but has also spawned countless hoaxes and scientific falsehoods.

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Public Health

Intimate portraits of a hospital covid unit from a photojournalist-turned-nurse.

Victoria Hansen

"Don't suffer like me, get the vaccine immediately. It's not only protecting yourself, it's protecting people like me," says 72-year-old Joel Croxton. Croxton was fully vaccinated but had a weakened immune system. He died of COVID-19 on Sept. 14. Alan Hawes/Medical University of South Carolina hide caption

"Don't suffer like me, get the vaccine immediately. It's not only protecting yourself, it's protecting people like me," says 72-year-old Joel Croxton. Croxton was fully vaccinated but had a weakened immune system. He died of COVID-19 on Sept. 14.

Alan Hawes pulls up images on his computer that are raw and intimate, like the anguished eyes of a 72-year-old man in a hospital bed, trapped behind a mask.

"He was extremely scared, and I think that comes across in the photo," says Hawes.

"He's just kind of looking into the lens like, 'Help me.' "

A photojournalist for nearly two decades, Hawes, 52, is used to taking pictures of people when they're most vulnerable.

Alan Hawes, formerly a photojournalist and now a nurse at the Medical University of South Carolina, documented daily life for patients and hospital workers in the hospital's intensive care unit. Sarah Pack/Medical University of South Carolina hide caption

Alan Hawes, formerly a photojournalist and now a nurse at the Medical University of South Carolina, documented daily life for patients and hospital workers in the hospital's intensive care unit.

Now he works as a registered nurse at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, and the man in the picture was a patient.

"He told me, 'I don't ever want anyone to have to go through this.' "

Neither does Hawes. That's why he got the idea to start photographing his daily experiences with health care workers and COVID-19 patients in the critical care unit.

"If the public was more educated and could see what was going on and feel some of those emotions that I hope my photos show, I felt like it would make a bigger difference," says Hawes, whose photographs have been published by the Chicago Tribune, Sports Illustrated and The Associated Press.

Hawes especially hopes the images can change the minds of the unvaccinated. To the frustration of health care workers, most new patients turning up at his hospital's emergency room have not been vaccinated, he says. And as the nation braces for another deadly wave, this time due to the omicron variant, he expects the number of people seriously ill with COVID-19 to go up.

Shots - Health News

Omicron could bring the worst surge of covid yet in the u.s. — and fast.

With the permission of hospital officials, health care workers and COVID-19 patients, Hawes began taking photos on his own time. Many of the images are showcased on the hospital's Facebook page and have been featured in local news.

Respiratory therapist Miriah Blevins — in full personal protective equipment — peers out a window looking for assistance as she cares for a patient. Alan Hawes/Medical University of South Carolina hide caption

Respiratory therapist Miriah Blevins — in full personal protective equipment — peers out a window looking for assistance as she cares for a patient.

Left: Patient care technician Kelly Burchette comforts intensive care unit nurse Andrea Crain as she breaks down in tears after calling a patient's wife to tell her to come to the hospital because her husband is dying. "Everybody is dying, and it just makes me so sad," Crain said. Right: A patient's prayer cloth is attached to an IV pole at the request of the patient's family. Alan Hawes/ Medical University of South Carolina hide caption

Left: Patient care technician Kelly Burchette comforts intensive care unit nurse Andrea Crain as she breaks down in tears after calling a patient's wife to tell her to come to the hospital because her husband is dying. "Everybody is dying, and it just makes me so sad," Crain said. Right: A patient's prayer cloth is attached to an IV pole at the request of the patient's family.

Those images include a respiratory therapist peering through the blinds from inside a patient's window. She is trying to get another health care worker's attention. She needs help to care for the patient but can't leave the room because she is in full protective gear. Hawes says he took this shot because "it just kind of shows how isolated we are when we're in those rooms."

Another is a close-up of a prayer cloth sealed in a plastic bag marked "do not throw away," attached to an IV pole. The cloth was made by a family member to provide comfort and spiritual strength to their mother, a COVID-19 patient. The woman died in October.

Another photo captures a nurse crying after calling a patient's wife, urging her to come quickly because her husband is dying.

These are images fellow nurse Sarah Bucko, 40, knows all too well.

"I look at these pictures and I can tell you their names. I can tell you whether they lived or died and how my co-workers were feeling that day," she says.

Bucko has worked at the hospital for nearly 20 years. She says she loves caring for people. But like millions of health care workers across the country, she is exhausted — physically, mentally and emotionally.

Hospital staff roll a COVID-19 patient into the intensive care unit at the Medical University of South Carolina after the patient was intubated in the emergency room. The patient's wife was also hospitalized with COVID-19. Alan Hawes/Medical University of South Carolina hide caption

Hospital staff roll a COVID-19 patient into the intensive care unit at the Medical University of South Carolina after the patient was intubated in the emergency room. The patient's wife was also hospitalized with COVID-19.

Left: registered nurse Crystal Foster dons her protective gear. She has had two mild COVID infections herself, the second time after being fully vaccinated. Right: ICU nurse Lauren Harfield writes information about blood oxygen levels on the window of the patient's door so it can be easily seen by medical staff. Alan Hawes/Medical University of South Carolina hide caption

Left: registered nurse Crystal Foster dons her protective gear. She has had two mild COVID infections herself, the second time after being fully vaccinated. Right: ICU nurse Lauren Harfield writes information about blood oxygen levels on the window of the patient's door so it can be easily seen by medical staff.

A team of nurses, patient care technicians and a respiratory therapist prepare to return a COVID patient to their back after 24 hours of lying on their stomach. That posture makes it easier to breathe and is a critical part of treatment for COVID patients in hospitals. Alan Hawes/Medical University of South Carolina hide caption

A team of nurses, patient care technicians and a respiratory therapist prepare to return a COVID patient to their back after 24 hours of lying on their stomach. That posture makes it easier to breathe and is a critical part of treatment for COVID patients in hospitals.

Even after she has helped save a loved one's life, she says, some family members have told her that they're still not sure they'll get vaccinated – and that the coronavirus is a hoax.

"I've been told by patients' families [who can't come to visit] that we are making this up to drum up business at the hospital," says Bucko.

"If anything," she adds, "I think these pictures show this is real."

Left: Tala'Shea Foster uses FaceTime to see her newborn son, delivered by emergency cesarean section because her COVID was so severe. Foster says she didn't know the vaccine was available for pregnant women. Right: Charles Roberts had a tube inserted in his nose to improve oxygen flow shortly after his hospital admission for COVID. By the end of the night, he was intubated. Alan Hawes/Medical University of South Carolina hide caption

Left: Tala'Shea Foster uses FaceTime to see her newborn son, delivered by emergency cesarean section because her COVID was so severe. Foster says she didn't know the vaccine was available for pregnant women. Right: Charles Roberts had a tube inserted in his nose to improve oxygen flow shortly after his hospital admission for COVID. By the end of the night, he was intubated.

Steven Lavender recovers from COVID in the ICU after spending weeks isolated in a specialized COVID unit on a ventilator until he was no longer contagious. Lavender was unable to talk due to a tracheotomy, so his fiancée Mary Moore made a page in her journal that he could use to point to his needs. According to Moore, Lavender said he was "too busy" to go for a vaccine prior to getting COVID. Alan Hawes/Medical University of South Carolina hide caption

Steven Lavender recovers from COVID in the ICU after spending weeks isolated in a specialized COVID unit on a ventilator until he was no longer contagious. Lavender was unable to talk due to a tracheotomy, so his fiancée Mary Moore made a page in her journal that he could use to point to his needs. According to Moore, Lavender said he was "too busy" to go for a vaccine prior to getting COVID.

But there are some people who have changed their minds about the COVID-19 vaccine and have allowed Hawes to document their stories.

Steven Murray is one such patient.

Murray, who was not vaccinated, believed he could fight off COVID-19 like the flu when he reluctantly went to the emergency room just before Labor Day.

Hawes photographed him sitting in a chair with tubes up his nose.

"I was like, 'No, not me. I'm tough. I'm 37 years old. I'm not going to die,' " he says.

Steven Murray did not get the vaccine. "I thought that if I got COVID, I'd be able to fight it off like the flu. Boy was I wrong. There is nothing you could have told me to make me get the vaccine. After this experience, I'm telling everyone I know to get it now. The grim reaper was reaching out for me. I was scared." Alan Hawes/Medical University of South Carolina hide caption

But within an hour of being admitted, Murray says doctors told him he would likely not leave the hospital alive if he didn't get intubated — inserting a tube into the trachea to maintain an airway.

Stubbornly, he refused and now admits he was scared he would die if put on a ventilator.

He survived.

When health care staffers asked why he'd decided against getting vaccinated, Murray says he told them, "because I'm a dumbass."

Murray says he bought into what he calls the misinformation and politics surrounding the pandemic. He goes out of his way to share his story whenever he can, and "when I tell them, I'm like please, please, please get the vaccine. If you haven't gotten it, please."

"We need to give these people a break because eventually they are going to break," says Murray.

Dr. Denise Sese (left) discusses a patient's plan of care with nurse Ericka Tollerson in the COVID intensive care unit. Alan Hawes/Medical University of South Carolina hide caption

Dr. Denise Sese (left) discusses a patient's plan of care with nurse Ericka Tollerson in the COVID intensive care unit.

The COVID ICU has a red zone that's sealed with negative pressure air to keep the airborne virus particles from leaving the room. Staff are required to wear full PPE, including N95 respirators and eye protection, for most of their 12-hour shifts. Alan Hawes/Medical University of South Carolina hide caption

The COVID ICU has a red zone that's sealed with negative pressure air to keep the airborne virus particles from leaving the room. Staff are required to wear full PPE, including N95 respirators and eye protection, for most of their 12-hour shifts.

Hawes doesn't know how people will react to his photos, but he hopes the images will be educational.

"The more people see, the more they understand, and the better decisions people make," says Hawes.

"That's what journalism is about."

Victoria Hansen covers the Charleston community for South Carolina Public Radio.

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The coronavirus pandemic has forced many Penn students to return to their permanent residences as they have transitioned to online learning for the remainder of the spring semester. For some of these students, the semester would have to be completed in New York City — the epicenter of the crisis in the United States. 

The City That Never Sleeps has been in a deep slumber for nearly two months. The streets have become eerily quiet. Businesses have closed their doors. Public places that were usually packed are now virtually empty. Here is what New York City looks like in the time of COVID-19, along with some perspectives from Penn students who are experiencing the isolation firsthand.

Note: Quotes have been edited for clarity. None of the students quoted appear in the photographs.

“I’ve been able to walk in the streets due to the lack of traffic, something that I wouldn’t have imagined doing a couple months ago. The weirdest part isn’t even the physical emptiness, it’s the way that New Yorkers are forced to walk as far away as possible from each other on the sidewalks.” – College senior Carly Deitelzweig

“I’ve lived in New York City my whole life and have never seen it so desolate. Almost all businesses are closed and many people have left the city. On bad weather days, the streets are virtually empty." – College first-year Alison Comite

"I went out for the first time yesterday since about March 15. Flowers started blooming, and I didn't realize that from my window. Going out made me realize this is gonna be a really long battle." – Engineering sophomore Kaiying Guo

"I always feel worse when I return home after going for a short walk. The spring is my favorite time of the year. Everything feels pretty anxious when I’m outside." – College first-year Justin Lipitz

"The city feels different, as I can only experience it from the inside now. I can sense that people are itching to return to normalcy. Personally, I am finding things to keep me sane – music, drawing, growing a plant, and cooking." – Nursing junior Sydney Steward

The World Trade Center Transportation Hub, also known as The Oculus, is nearly empty during the evening rush hour.

The Brooklyn Bridge, one of the most iconic landmarks in the city, is no longer filled with runners and bikers.

"I usually don’t mind being inside but after 28 days in a small apartment I finally decided I needed to breathe some fresh air. I live ten blocks away from the tent set up in Central Park. It absolutely sent chills down my body." – College senior Giovanna Sena

"The news reports have definitely been scary, and I’ve had a lot of friends texting me worried because they know I’m in New York City. There are some times — particularly at night or when the weather is bad — when the streets can be really empty.” – College senior Serena Miniter

"I definitely feel that I’ve had a very different experience during this time living in New York City. I am proud of those who have been working to respect social distancing — we all know how critical it is for us to do.” – College sophomore Gillian Broome

"The only times my family and I go outside are to walk our dog or make a bulk run to Trader Joe’s. I have found it a bit challenging to social distance while walking my dog due to how many families and individuals are outside as well, but people walk on the empty roads to keep separate. The highways are a ghost town." – College first-year Anika Kalra

The trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange is closed for the first time in its 228-year history.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been using a large billboard in Times Square to project public service announcements, but there aren’t many people there to read them.

"Being inside can be tough. Every day can seem never-ending and the things we once took for granted: sunlight, fresh air, walking space, now seem even more inviting. I know lots of people are hoping that this quarantine ends soon, but New Yorkers are tough and we can get through as many days as necessary so that we can beat this virus." – Nursing junior Kimberly De La Cruz

"Everywhere you go people are staring at you over their masks like you have three heads. The empty streets are equally ominous and calming depending on how recently you checked the news." – College junior Sydney Mueller

"Everyone seems happy, but at same time they are hoping for things to settle down and life to come back to normal. Initially, most people were afraid to go out, but with the weather getting better and the situation decreasing, more are now enjoying it." – Engineering sophomore Aida Akuyeva

"The one thing I love about being in New York City during this time is that at 7pm every night, which is the typical time for hospital shifts to change, my entire neighborhood explodes in loud cheering, honking, and pot banging to celebrate our selfless health care workers. I have never felt so proud of and part of the NYC community as during those moments." – College first-year Serena Zhang

The Empire State Building lights up red almost every night to honor healthcare workers treating COVID-19 patients.

"At night, there is this looming eeriness as if the city has been sucker-punched. The soul of New York is missing. But we will be back." – College sophomore Kian Sadeghi

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Dark Persistence: Black College Women's COVID-19 Photo Essays

Jennifer d. turner.

1 University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

Associated Data

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-jlr-10.1177_1086296X231178524 for Dark Persistence: Black College Women's COVID-19 Photo Essays by Jennifer D. Turner in Journal of Literacy Research

Supplemental material, sj-docx-2-jlr-10.1177_1086296X231178524 for Dark Persistence: Black College Women's COVID-19 Photo Essays by Jennifer D. Turner in Journal of Literacy Research

Supplemental material, sj-docx-3-jlr-10.1177_1086296X231178524 for Dark Persistence: Black College Women's COVID-19 Photo Essays by Jennifer D. Turner in Journal of Literacy Research

Supplemental material, sj-docx-4-jlr-10.1177_1086296X231178524 for Dark Persistence: Black College Women's COVID-19 Photo Essays by Jennifer D. Turner in Journal of Literacy Research

Supplemental material, sj-docx-5-jlr-10.1177_1086296X231178524 for Dark Persistence: Black College Women's COVID-19 Photo Essays by Jennifer D. Turner in Journal of Literacy Research

Supplemental material, sj-docx-6-jlr-10.1177_1086296X231178524 for Dark Persistence: Black College Women's COVID-19 Photo Essays by Jennifer D. Turner in Journal of Literacy Research

Guided by intersectional multimodal literacy frameworks and analytic methods, this qualitative study explored how seven high-achieving Black undergraduate women's photo essays visually and textually represented their persistence during the COVID-19 pandemic. Photo essays, in this context, are intersectional multimodal compositions that use images and words to articulate the challenges that the women faced during COVID-19 and the resources that promoted their persistence. Data sources included a demographic questionnaire, the women's digital photo essays, and lengthy photo-elicitation interviews with the women on Zoom. Findings reveal that the women's photo essays evoked an endarkened persistence, rooted in the legacy of Black people's collective struggle and survival, and represented by two interrelated themes: Affirming Black Beauty (i.e., Embracing natural Black hair and Caring for Black female bodies) and Honoring the Spirit (i.e., (Re)connecting with sistafriends, (Re)claiming rest, and Nurturing creativity). Research and practical implications are discussed.

My photos show how I’ve been able to find motivation at this institution where I’m not the same as everyone else. I have persisted during COVID-19 by continuing to find things that bring me joy despite the fact that there's a lot of fear … I’ve struggled, but I’m still here and there is hope.

Imani's (all names are pseudonyms) words and images in her photo essay break the silence surrounding high-achieving, Black undergraduate women at predominantly white universities (PWUs) and their COVID-19 experiences. The traumas that Black college women, and Black women more generally, have experienced since the COVID-19 pandemic began in March 2020 are oftentimes ignored by U.S. society ( Pennant, 2022 ). It is well-known that COVID-19 disproportionately affects Black and Latinx communities ( Jones et al., 2022 ), yet many are unaware that Black women are three times more likely than white and Asian men to die from the disease ( Njoku & Evans, 2022 ). Black women are also more likely to experience consequential impacts of COVID-19, including deteriorating physical and mental healthand economic instability ( Chandler et al., 2021 ). At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the traumas that Black women have endured from structural racism in the United States. As Black women grieved for George Floyd, William Howard Green, and other unarmed Black men murdered by police in 2020, they were equally devastated by the state-sanctioned murders of Breonna Taylor and countless other unarmed Black women whose names were erased by the media ( Pennant, 2022 )—heartbreaking reminders that Black women's bodies, literacies, and lives are disposable. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Black undergraduate women like Imani navigate physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual challenges, and many suffer—and persist—in silence.

As a Black college woman, Imani recognizes that her persistence in the global pandemic reflects that she is “not the same as everyone else.” Her words underscore how high-achieving Black undergraduate women are socially located at the intersections of race, gender, and academic status, and due to their membership in two marginalized groups (i.e., women and Black people), they experience raced-gendered oppressions on higher education campuses and in society ( Davis, 2018 ; Patton & Croom, 2017 ). At PWUs, these oppressive forces work to diminish Black college women's high-grade point averages (GPAs), graduation rates, honors program participation, and other scholastic achievements ( Davis, 2018 ; Patton & Croom, 2017 ). High-achieving Black undergraduate women are particularly marginalized by broader diversity discourses that aggregate student experiences with a singular focus on race (e.g., African American) or gender (e.g., women of color), erasing their distinctive voices from policies, programs, and pedagogies at PWUs ( Davis, 2018 ). This erasure has been exacerbated in the COVID-19 era, as pandemic impact research frequently aggregates Black college women's and men's experiences ( Jones et al., 2022 ). To my knowledge, there are no studies focused specifically on Black women who have been academically successful despite the COVID-19 pandemic, and this lack of intersectional research marginalizes the voices and experiences of women like Imani.

Imani's assertion that she is “not the same as everyone else” also implores literacy scholars to push beyond the boundaries of print-centric research toward critical multimodal paradigms that center the rich compositional practices and products of young people of color. When asked about her experiences creating the photo essay, Imani noted, “This was a super fun project for me. I’m a photographer, and I love photos and making collages where I can express myself and document my experiences.” Here, Imani foregrounds how she composes with images and words to express herself—who she is as a Black, high-achieving college woman—and her intersectional experiences during COVID-19. Historically and contemporarily, Black women have engaged literacies across multiple modalities to define their raced-gendered identities and assert their humanity ( Muhammad & Womack, 2015 ; Price-Dennis et al., 2017 ). Despite their rich multiliterate legacies, high-achieving Black college women like Imani are frequently (mis)perceived as unintelligent, incapable, and illiterate compared to their white peers at PWUs ( Kynard, 2010 ). In college English classrooms, Black undergraduate women may not demonstrate their full multimodal compositional repertoires because conventional pedagogies overemphasize standardization and skills, which “shifts writing from being a source of possibility to one of ridicule and limitation” ( Smith et al., 2022 , p. 1674). In addition, high-achieving Black college women and their multimodal literacies have been marginalized in the research literature “due to the reductive nature of how literacies in college settings are imagined, [and] the lack of attention paid to out-of-school literacies” ( Kynard, 2010 , p. 35).

Imani's words suggest that scholarship that centers on high-achieving Black college women and elevates their multimodal compositions is essential for promoting their educational, socioemotional, and mental well-being beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. Toward that end, this article highlights how seven high-achieving Black college women's photo essays represented persistence and illuminated, in Imani's words, “the things that brought joy” during the COVID-19 pandemic. Here, “photo essay” represents a type of intersectional multimodal composition that Black college women author to “affirm the self and critique dominant narratives of whiteness” ( Smith et al., 2022 , p. 1676). Guided by intersectional multimodal literacy frameworks and analytic methods, I explore the following question:

How do Black undergraduate women's photo essays visually and textually represent their persistence during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Critical Framings: The Intersectionality of Black College Women's Multimodal Literacies

This study brings together intersectional literacy theories ( Green et al., 2021 ), New Literacy perspectives ( New London Group, 1996 ), and endarkened feminist epistemology frameworks ( Dillard, 2000 , 2016 ) to articulate the intersectionality of Black college women's multimodal literacies. Intersectional literacy theories are rooted in the concept of intersectionality , defined by Kimberlé Crenshaw (2017) as a “lens through which you can see where power comes and collides, where it interlocks and intersects.” Frequently misrepresented as a theory of multiple identities, intersectionality is a critical framework for articulating and examining how simultaneous group memberships significantly shape people's experiences of power and privilege ( Collins, 2009 ; Crenshaw, 2017 ). More specifically, intersectionality illuminates the complex, cumulative effects of multiple oppressions that women of color experience at the intersections of race and gender within a white supremacist patriarchal society ( Evans-Winters & Esposito, 2010 ). For example, Black women face multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination in mainstream institutions (e.g., racism and sexism); therefore, their lived experiences are different from those of white women and men of color ( Crenshaw, 2017 ; Evans-Winters & Esposito, 2010 ).

Informed by these perspectives, I offer an intersectional multimodal literacy framework to articulate how Black college women's multimodal communicative practices are situated in and expressive of their raced-gendered ways of knowing, doing, and being. Adapting Green et al.'s ( 2021 ) framework for intersectionalizing racial literacies, I understand Black college women's intersectional multimodal literacies as endarkened , engendered , and embodied . The terms “endarkened” and “engendered” move away from white feminisms and their “enlightened” ideologies and instead articulate Black women's realities located in Black feminist thought ( Dillard, 2000 , 2016 ). This shift illuminates the unique cultural standpoints that Black women occupy based on their shared legacy of struggle within interlocking and intermeshing systems of oppression in U.S. society ( Collins, 2009 ; Crenshaw, 2017 ). Drawing on the specialized knowledge acquired from their endarkened and engendered standpoints, Black women move beyond victim status, using their agency and empowerment to (re)define Black womanhood; love themselves, their families, and their communities; promote wellness for themselves and others; and persist in fighting against societal oppressions ( Collins, 2009 ; Dillard, 2000 ; hooks, 1993 ). As such, Black women engage intersectional multimodal literacies as alternate sites of knowledge production and textual practice that materialize “the self-expression, self-definition, and validation of Black female understanding” ( Dillard, 2000 , p. 664).

Black college women's intersectional multimodal literacies are also embodied and therefore represent and reflect their “full Black womanness” ( Green et al., 2021 ). In contrast to Westernized dichotomies between the material (i.e., the body) and the nonmaterial (i.e., the spiritual), Black women hold African worldviews that are holistic, in which body and spirit coalesce and are (re)affirmed in divine relationship to self, community, and Creator ( Dillard, 2000 , 2016 ). By leveraging their intersectional multimodal literacies, Black women compose intellectual and creative multimodal works (e.g., music, literature, art, and photography) that facilitate the (re)membering of their mental, emotional, and spiritual selves, allowing them to repair the fragmentation caused by a white supremacist patriarchal society ( Dillard, 2000 , 2016 ). Moreover, intersectional multimodal literacies serve as restorative practices that allow Black women to represent and reaffirm the people, places, and spaces that promote their humanity and healing, including psychological counseling or therapy and self-care practices, friendships with Black women and women of color, places of rest (e.g., gardens), religious communities (e.g., churches), and political advocacy groups ( Adkins-Jackson et al., 2022 ; Collins, 2009 ; Dillard, 2000 , 2016 ). Consequently, Black women's intersectional multimodal literacies, and the creative textual works that they inspire and animate, perform the historical and contemporary functions of literacies that protect and serve ( Richardson, 2002 ) the intellectuality, psychosocial wellness, and persistence of Black women.

Though small, the extant literature demonstrates that Black college women practice a variety of modes of literate meaning-making situated at the intersections of race and gender. The Black college women in Ohito's (2020) study created multimodal compositions that illustrated the heterogeneity, resilience, and humanity of Black people across time and place. Moreover, Kynard (2010) revealed the power of digital multimodal writing in a Sista-cypher with 13 Black undergraduate women at an urban PWU. In the safety of their virtual hush harbor, the Sistas’ multimodal choices (e.g., font size) and rhetorical moves animated their counterstorytelling and interrogation of structural racism at their PWU and in society. Collectively, this research illuminates how Black college women at PWUs create multimodal compositions “to cope with and, in many cases, transcend the confines of intersecting oppressions” ( Collins, 2009 , p. 98).

Young Black Women's Photo Essays as Intersectional Multimodal Composition

As photographic writers, young Black women compose intersectional multimodal compositions that “affirm themselves, the(ir) world, and the multidimensionality of young Black womanhood” ( Price-Dennis et al., 2017 , p. 5). Historically, Black women have engaged in writing to achieve four central purposes: (a) expressing self-defined intersectional identities, (b) promoting persistence in the face of societal oppression, (c) building capacity for liberatory work, and (d) advancing collective transformation and social justice ( Muhammad & Behizadeh, 2015 ). Contemporary young Black women in their adolescent and early adult years, rooted in the rich authorial legacies of their Black foremothers, compose photo essays and other rich multimodal compositions that nurture their liberation, healing, and persistence in an anti-Black, patriarchal society (e.g., Muhammad & Womack, 2015 ; Ohito, 2020 ; Price-Dennis et al., 2017 ; Turner & Griffin, 2020 ; Wissman, 2008 ). In this study, photo essays are intersectional multimodal compositions where young Black women represent their full Black womanness, entangled and imbued with endarkened, engendered, and embodied meanings, through a combination of visual modes (i.e., photographic imagery) and linguistic modes (e.g., written captions), and may include other communicative modes like aurality, gesture, and spatiality ( New London Group, 1996 ). Moreover, photo essays highlight and reflect how Black women engage their creative energies, which are ancestral life forces for Black girls and women ( Brown, 2013 ; Dillard, 2000 ), in “ongoing acts of self-preservation and resistance” ( Green et al., 2021 , p. 143).

An emerging body of research has theorized how young Black women mobilize visual (e.g., photographic images), textual (e.g., written captions), and their epistemological resources (e.g., intersectional knowledges) “to negotiate public perceptions and author their own lives rather than being defined by others” ( Muhammad & Womack, 2015 , p. 8). Some young Black women compose photographic writing about thier religious affiliations to refuse the fragmented views of Black womanhood propagated in society and to (re)member their full Black womanness and the interconnectedness of their minds, bodies, and spirits. Candace, a 16-year-old African American girl, illustrated salient intellectual, emotional, and spiritual aspects of herself through photographs of her praise dancing with a group of Black women at church and a self-portrait in a classic thinker's pose ( Manning et al., 2015 ). Reflecting on her photographs and writings, Candace validated her self-worth as a young Christian Black woman by “justify[ing] who I am through myself and God and not by what others believe” ( Manning et al., 2015 , p. 148). In Griffin and Turner's (2023) research, Arielle Mack, a Black woman student-athlete at a PWU, foregrounded her full Black womanness in her photo essay, highlighting how her multiple intersectional identities (e.g., daughter, sister, activist, Christian, and future physical therapist) animated her academic and athletic life. In so doing, Arielle rejected her university's vision of her body as a “tool” that labors to enrich white postsecondary institutions.

Other studies demonstrate how photographic writing opens space for young Black women to understand their full Black womanness as a reflection of the divine in their relationship with themselves, their families, their friends, their communities, and their ancestors ( Dillard, 2000 , 2016 ). For example, representations of beauty and wellness are particularly relevant to young Black women because the popular media often depicts Black female bodies as physically unattractive, unhealthy, and nonfeminine compared to White women ( Muhammad & Womack, 2015 ; Price-Dennis et al., 2017 ). In Hampton and Desjourdy's (2013) study, Kanisha, a Black Canadian adolescent girl, challenged media depictions of white women as the ideal beauty through a photographic series titled Road to Salvation . Through reflective writings and images of her natural face and Black hair-care practices, Kanisha represented the sacredness and authenticity of beauty in her culture. Kanisha's photographs, taken on her bed, also depicted the ways that resting nourished her body, mind, and spirit and provided space for healing the broken parts of herself ( hooks, 1993 ). Along similar lines, Jordan, a Black adolescent girl in Muhammad and Womack's (2015) study contested Eurocentric standards of beauty and documented her own journey toward self-love. By pinning photographs and brief commentaries on her Pinterest board, Jordan illuminated the false binaries of “good” (white) hair (e.g., long, straight, and silky) and “bad” (Black) hair (e.g., short and curly), processed her own feelings about her hair, and began reimagining “what beauty could and should look like” ( Muhammad & Womack, 2015 , p. 24).

Relatedly, young Black women compose photo essays to celebrate the fullness of their Black womanness and the wholeness of their relationships, rejecting public stereotypes that they are too loud, violent, and aggressive to sustain close friendships ( Brown, 2013 ; Price-Dennis et al., 2017 ). In Wissman's ( 2008 ) research, African American adolescent girls created photographic self-portraits to highlight the literacies (e.g., writing), cultural practices (e.g., braided hairstyles), and loving relationships (e.g., daughter, sister, and friend) that were significant in their lives, but that their school overlooked, misjudged, or dismissed. Similarly, young Black girls in Brown’s (2013) study took photographs of themselves talking, playing, laughing, and dancing with other Black girls and Black women to illuminate the close friendships, love, caring, and hope cultivated in their intergenerational group of “homegirls.” Taken together, these studies suggest that young Black girls engage in truth-telling through photographic writing that exposes “the inaccurate ways in which they … were being characterized and consistently asserts their own power to name, represent, and define their own identities and realities” ( Wissman, 2008 , p. 35). My study takes inspiration from this work and focuses on Black college women's photo essays about their persistence throughout the COVID-19 crisis.

Study Design and Researcher Positionality

The photo essays featured in this article originated from a 5-month qualitative study on the pandemic experiences of high-achieving Black undergraduate men ( n   =  1) and women ( n   =  7). Indicators of “high achievement” included participants’ self-reported college grade point averages (i.e., 3.0 or higher on a 4.0 scale) and their participation in at least one campus program for academically talented minoritized students (e.g., Black Honor Society) at the time of the study. All participants received a US$50 electronic gift card funded by a university research grant.

As an African American woman scholar, I purposefully conducted this qualitative study from an intersectional multimodal literacy perspective, shifting “from the traditional metaphor of research as recipe to fix some problem to a metaphor that centers reciprocity and relationship between the researcher … and those who, in that moment, are engaged in the research with us” ( Dillard, 2016 , p. 407). Thus, I intentionally engaged in critical listening ( Kinloch & San Pedro, 2014 ) to be present with the participants rather than enacting the role of a detached researcher. During interviews, I shared some of my own vulnerabilities during the pandemic, as well as affirmed those that participants shared with me. At times, the participants positioned me as a Black faculty “expert” and our conversations centered on their questions about pursuing educational (e.g., graduate school) and career goals in uncertain times. Most often, participants invited me to witness their truth-telling ( Dillard, 2016 ) and learn about their cultural lifeworlds through their personal photographs, playlists, and social media artifacts. Thus, my approach to humanizing research ( Kinloch & San Pedro, 2014 ) in a pandemic world included critically listening to and authentically caring for my participants’ concerns, honoring their lived experiences, and being vulnerable enough to share my own pandemic experiences.

Participants and Research Context

This article focuses on the seven Black women who participated in the larger qualitative study (see Table 1 ). All seven self-identified as Black women, demonstrated high academic achievement, and were full-time undergraduate students at the time of the study.

Participants’ Demographic Information.

Abbreviation: GPA = grade point average.

The study was conducted at a large, predominantly white public university in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. During the 2020–2021 academic year, the university enrolled approximately 30,000 undergraduate students, with Black students composing about 12% of the undergraduate population. Due to COVID-19 restrictions for conducting research instituted by the university, all activities related to this project, including participant recruitment and data collection procedures, were conducted virtually. I emailed directors of campus programs for high-achieving Black students and/or students of color, received permission to virtually recruit participants, and advertised the study with a digital flyer. I also asked participants to recommend other Black high achievers as a snowball sampling technique ( Merriam & Tisdell, 2016 ).

Data Collection

After receiving institutional research board approval, data were collected from January 2021 to May 2021. Participants completed a 16-item questionnaire about their demographic background (e.g., age and GPA). Then, participants composed a photo essay based on the following prompt:

Write a photo essay describing your experiences as a Black undergraduate student at a predominantly white university during the pandemic (March 2020 to the present). Select 5–8 personal photographs from your smartphones and/or online images representing the challenges you faced and 5–8 images representing the resources/assets that helped you persist and succeed. Write a caption explaining how each image represented a barrier or resource for you during COVID-19.

Participants composed their photo essays at home/dorm by creating collages (i.e., groupings of images) or booklets (i.e., one image per slide) with digital slides (e.g., PowerPoint). Sample photo essays were not provided so that participants could be as creative as they wished.

Finally, participants engaged in individual interviews with the researcher over Zoom. Guided by photo-elicitation methods ( Harper, 2002 ), the interview elicited the meanings that participants ascribed to their images through a series of questions about compositional details (e.g., Who/What is in the photo? Where was it taken?) and their personal interpretations (e.g., How does this photo represent persistence?). Interviews lasted from 80 to 130 min and were video recorded and transcribed. Participants reviewed their interview transcripts for accuracy as a member-checking strategy ( Merriam & Tisdell, 2016 ).

Data Analysis

The analysis in this article focuses on the Black undergraduate women participants’ data set consisting of 110 images, 125 written captions, and over 400 pages of interview transcripts. I first analyzed the women's photo essays using an intersectional multimodal content analysis tool. Informed by the intersectional multimodal literacy framework previously discussed and photographic writing scholarship, this analytic tool helped me attend to the endarkened, engendered, and embodied meanings of persistence by indexing the photograph's (a) intersectional representations (e.g., Black women's portrayals); (b) intersectional positionings (e.g., Black women's positionalities); (c) intersectional agency (e.g., Black women's agency and emotionality amidst sociopolitical oppressions); (d) interactional viewpoints (e.g., viewer-image perspective); (e) textual commentary (e.g., written captions); and (f) intermodal meanings (e.g., image–text interplay). Supplemental Figure A presents the intersectional multimodal content analysis of one participant's page from her photo essay (see Figure A in the online Supplemental Archive ).

Next, I conducted inductive thematic analyses through six interrelated phases ( Braun & Clarke, 2006 ). In Phase 1, I familiarized myself with the data set by annotating the intersectional multimodal content analysis sheets and the interview transcripts. In Phase 2, I generated an initial coding scheme with an Afro-Caribbean woman doctoral student who served as a collaborative (analytical) partner ( Merriam & Tisdell, 2016 ). We began by independently reading four women's interview transcripts and creating open codes ( Merriam & Tisdell, 2016 ) as descriptive labels for varying aspects of persistence. Then, we collapsed and merged codes across our respective schemes to create broader categories related to persistence. For example, we generated eight codes (e.g., work friends and dorm friends) through our individual coding processes that described the types of friendships that enabled the women to persist during COVID-19. Collaboratively, we discussed the coded data, determined the most salient codes, and generated two broad categories related to friendship: friendships with Black women and friendships with women of color. This process yielded 16 analytic categories of persistence: (a) physical exercise, (b) hair care, (c) physical health, (d) intentional lifestyle choices, (e) friendships with Black women, (f) advocacy, (g) creative pursuits, (h) trying new activities, (i) social outings, (j) family connections, (k) friendships with women of color, (l) financial resources, (m) rest, (n) academic study skills, (o) academic support (e.g., tutoring), and (p) future goals/aspirations.

Phase 3 involved searching for patterns of meaning within individual photo essays. I reanalyzed each woman's interview using the 16 analytic categories and reviewed the completed intersectional multimodal content analysis sheets related to her photo essay. Drawing on these data, I created individual summaries to help me understand the endarkened, engendered, and embodied meanings of each women's persistence. For example, I wrote detailed summaries of how each woman's friendships with Black women and women of color promoted their full Black womanness (e.g., freedom and authenticity) and supported their persistence during the pandemic. In Phase 4, I looked for patterns of meaning across the seven women's data sets. Utilizing a matrix defined by the 16 analytic categories, I searched for repeated patterns across the collated interview data. Annotating the data matrix, the individual summaries and the completed intersectional multimodal content analysis sheets helped me construct a theme related to Black women's physicality by grouping four categories (i.e., physical exercise, hair care, physical health, and intentional lifestyle choices) and a second theme related to Black women's spirituality by clustering six additional categories (i.e., creative pursuits, trying new activities, friendships with Black women, friendships with women of color, resting, and social outings) . In Phase 5, I verified the two themes through key linkages ( Merriam & Tisdell, 2016 ) between the women's illustrative interview quotes and their photo essay images. I then searched for patterns within the data for each major theme and identified subthemes. Phase 6 yielded the final analysis presented in the findings section: Theme 1 with two subthemes (Affirming Black Beauty: Embracing (Natural) Black Hair and Caring for Black Female Bodies) and Theme 2 with three subthemes (Honoring the Spirit: (Re)connecting with SistaFriends, (Re)claiming Rest, and Nurturing Creativity). To enhance the trustworthiness of the study, participant member-checking, collaborative analytic methods, and data triangulation strategies were implemented ( Merriam & Tisdell, 2016 ).

Through their imagery and words, the women's photo essays evoked an endarkened persistence in the COVID-19 pandemic that (re)centered their full Black womanness and restored their bodies, minds, and spirits. Imani's eloquent explanation of endarkened meanings of persistence resonated with the other women: “COVID-19 most affects Black and Brown populations. So, a lot of white people aren’t wearing masks because they don’t understand the struggles of other races. We wear masks because we care about our communities, and we want to survive.” Here, the term “endarkened” reflects how Imani and her peers rooted their persistence during the COVID-19 pandemic within Black people's legacy of collective struggle and survival. In what follows, two interrelated themes illuminating the women's endarkened persistence are discussed: Affirming Black Beauty and Honoring the Spirit.

Theme 1: Affirming Black Beauty

In their photo essays, the women included images representing the ways that they moved from conventional beauty standards toward more Black women–centric ideals during the pandemic. Imani said it best: “I’ve always struggled with my body image. I’m like, ‘Oh, I need to look a certain way and conform’ … Black women feel so much pressure about fitting into Eurocentric standards of beauty … And I didn’t want to conform to those standards during COVID-19.” To resist Westernized beauty norms, the women affirmed their own Black beauty by loving and caring for their hair and bodies.

Embracing Natural Black Hair

Validating bell hooks's ( 1993 ) assertion that “the first body issue that affects black female identity, even more so than color is hair texture” (p. 85), the women's photo essays centered on their hair-care journeys and how they learned to embrace their natural Black hair. As a woman in the earlier phases of this journey, Chloe's photograph captioned “Quarantine haircut” represented the ups and downs in the process of accepting her hair:

I’ve always been … in contention with my own hair. I had it relaxed, and it was falling out. Then I would always get braids, but the tension was so tight, my edges were missing. Just before COVID-19, my hair was a weird length, and I wanted to do something really different. So, I cut it. Right now, all I can do really is lay it down and put a wig on it … [and] I’m at a point where I am OK with it.

Chloe's photograph illustrates the mixed emotions and uncertainties of moving beyond a “bad hair ideology” ( Muhammad & Womack, 2015 , p. 24) that frames Black hair as a problem to be “fixed” toward loving and appreciating her own hair. Rather than continuing to damage her hair by using a relaxer, or toxic chemicals, to attain the long, straight texture of white hair or wearing extremely tight braids, Chloe protected her hair by cutting it short and wearing it naturally. The photograph of Chloe's thin smile and right hand atop her head suggested that she was in the process of learning to accept her hair and love herself more fully.

In her photo essay, Rylee explained how a professional photograph on social media (see Figure 1 ) reflected her self-worth and self-love from her hair-care journey:

I think “the twist out” (style) represents a natural hair journey for me … I’ve never felt like my natural hair was celebrated. I really wanted to take the time this year [2021] to engage in that celebration of natural hair, not letting what other people want for me dictate what I look like. Doing my own hair is a way to take that control.

Rylee's professional photograph from social media.

Consequently, this photograph of Rylee smiling broadly in her taupe power suit, white blouse, black glasses, and shoulder-length tresses captures the confidence, attractiveness, and authority of a young Black woman who is defining herself on her own terms, beyond the societal beauty standards that others expect her to uphold.

Representing varying stages in their journeys, many women in the study shared photographs of the hair-care routines and natural styles (e.g., braids and curly/wavy hairdos) that they learned from social media. Most were inspired by popular Black natural hair-care TikTokers and YouTubers, and they constantly used these platforms as resources for hair-care products and instructional videos for hairstyling. Gianna shared a photo of her curly hair and asserted:

So, this is a picture of me when I had just done singles (braids) for the first time. I didn’t know how to do them, so I looked up a YouTube video and I sat there in my room for like 10 hours just braiding my hair … I guess [the photo] shows my struggles, navigating how to style and do my hair by myself, and how I achieved the look I really wanted.

As Gianna's words suggest, embracing natural hair was not always easy. In their photo essays, several women described their frustrations and anxieties during the shutdown when professional stylists, family, or friends could not do their hair. However, all these women ultimately viewed the pandemic as an opportunity to learn how to care for, appreciate, and love their hair, enabling them to feel beautiful and “achieve the look” they desired. As such, the women's photographs of their various natural hairstyles illuminated how their endarkened beauty, untethered from Eurocentric standards of “good” hair ( Muhammad & Womack, 2015 ), fostered persistence during the pandemic.

Caring for Black Female Bodies

In their photo essays, all seven women discussed how the pandemic gave them time to intentionally care for and (re)affirm their physical health in ways that strengthened their mental wellness. Jemele was the most enthused about “reinventing” her body image, asserting that she was “inspired by a lot of fitness transformations on YouTube and TikTok to get healthy on my terms.” In her photo essay, Jemele depicted new fitness activities that she had taken up during the pandemic, including jogging with her mother on local trails, jumping rope, and eating healthier foods. In Figure 2 , Jemele's photo illustrates her passion for weight lifting.

Jemele's photograph at the gym.

For Jemele, weight lifting was a “source of stress relief and empowerment” even though she was oftentimes the only Black woman in the weight room at the campus recreation center. She further explained in the interview,

It was intimidating at first, but then I got empowerment, like, “Hey, I’m lifting more than these guys. Check me out.” It was actually really cool, and I feel like that was one of the few times that I was actually somewhat comfortable in my own skin.

In her photographic image, Jemele's low-angle shot, clothing (i.e., lime green top and red sneakers), and stance as she lifts the barbell depicts not only her physical strength but her mental fortitude to be the only Black woman in the campus weight room and to be “comfortable” in her skin.

Unlike Jemele, who was beginning new health and fitness routines, Shona cared for her body by recommitting to physical activities that she loved in the past. Reflecting on a close-up shot at the pool's edge, Shona offered,

I wouldn’t say I’m the most active person. I hate going to the gym, and I hate running, but I really love swimming … [so] when I moved on campus (fall 2020), I made sure to use the natatorium to get fit. That really helped me to cope with everything going on.

Through her photograph, Shona (re)affirmed her Black girl body as active, playful, and healthy. Rather than engaging in forms of exercise that did not suit her, Shona chose to care for her body by swimming, a physical activity that helped her “get fit” and mentally “cope” during the pandemic. Like Shona, the other women foregrounded connections between physical health and mental wellness during the pandemic through multiple photographs of exercise routines and healthy dishes in their photo essays. Gianna's photograph of a dish that she created during the pandemic illustrated how cooking helped her to reestablish healthier eating behaviors:

This spring [2021], I tried to make sure that I was eating healthier and eating balanced meals, because throughout the pandemic, there were times when I would eat all day, and at other times, I would be so busy that I would forget to eat and then I’d eat all night. My favorite meal is what I call “ratchet hors d’oeuvres” made with olives, cheese, and other random things. People think it's weird, but I enjoy it and it really gave me more control of my body.

Notably, the women were adamant that they were not caring for their bodies to adhere to white standards of beauty and wellness (e.g., thin bodies). Rather, they were asserting their own endarkened ideals and values about healthy and beautiful bodies derived from African worldviews ( Dillard, 2016 ). As Imani reflected in the interview,

I moved to the U.S. when I was seven years old. Here, I felt a lot of pressure to be skinnier, whereas in Cameroon, a wider variety of body sizes are accepted. We aren’t necessarily super skinny and flat; we have more curves than what the ideal Eurocentric standard might be … With the pandemic, I’m recognizing that my body is my body. It's what God gave me, and I don’t need to be small to be beautiful.

Similarly, Karema asserted, “The pandemic was really bad, but having that time away from everything helped me to take care of myself and determine what I think is important for my body. I learned to love me .” Together, these women's words and imagery portrayed their endarkened persistence as respecting, caring for, and loving their bodies, which helped them become “more comfortable in [their] own skin” and cope with the challenges of the pandemic.

Theme 2: Honoring the Spirit

While sharing a screenshot of Annie Lee's classic painting Blue Monday , Gianna poignantly stated,

This picture is a Black woman who's exhausted. And I just really related to that during the pandemic, because you wake up, sit in front of a computer for nine hours, make dinner, go to sleep … and it's just the exhaustion of knowing that you have to do it again. Also, with all the racial injustice that's been going on, that's just like an added layer of tiredness because it's on your mind all the time.

By foregrounding the Blue Monday painting in her photo essay, Gianna evoked the severe mental exhaustion and significant stress that the women in this study experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet in their photo essays, the women also articulated how they intentionally honored their spirits—creating balance, breath, and joy amidst an unprecedented global pandemic—by (re)connecting with their sistafriends, (re)claiming rest, and nurturing creativity.

(Re)Connecting With Sistafriends

All the women shared photographs of sistafriends who were meaningful to them and with whom they intentionally reconnected during the pandemic. Importantly, the women described how these close friendships functioned as sistahoods ( Adkins-Jackson et al., 2022 ) that offered intimate and affirming spaces where they could be free in their full Black womanness. Figure 3 depicts Shona's relationship with one of her best friends.

Shona's photograph with a friend.

Shona's photograph foregrounds the importance of this friendship through multimodal design elements, including color (e.g., both are wearing black clothing), salience (e.g., both women are centered in the image), gaze (e.g., Shona and her friend are looking at each other), affect (e.g., smiling faces), and her written caption. Together, these visual and textual elements portrayed their sistahood as a space where Shona and her best friend could authentically “be themselves” as Black women without judgment. Similarly, Jemele shared photographs of her girlfriends wearing masks at a local restaurant, explaining that although she had many white friends her first semester of freshman year, she realized that their “cultural differences were too extreme and I kind of broke myself away from that group.” Thus, Jemele's photo represented how “blessed” she felt to have this “little girl group” of young Black women in her life who “understands me and loves me for who I am.” Relatedly, Gianna's photographs of her Black girlfriends represented their shared understanding of what it is like to navigate life on a white campus in a Black body:

A lot of my Black friends on campus are involved, and some organize the Black Lives Matter student club … And it kind of sucks, always feeling the need that you have to be the one to speak out on campus. But we also understand that we have to do that, and so we really relate to each other because of those experiences.

Lastly, Black sistafriends also nurtured the women's academic productivity. Some women, like Jemele, discussed their schedules with their friends to manage their time more effectively during the pandemic because “it was really tiring and overwhelming to be on a screen all day, but we still needed to prioritize and get things done.” Chloe explained that developing collaborative Spotify playlists with Karema and playing them while they studied together was helpful because “during COVID-19, I’ve had Zoom fatigue and I haven’t wanted to do my work. So, studying with her has motivated me to get my work done, and I get to hear new music, which is dope.” Like Chloe, Rylee was inspired to achieve by her Black sistafriends, and she believed that this support was particularly important at a PWU:

I know so many Black students that excel, and I think it's a product of being in this environment and supporting each other. Like, my friend shouted me out on their Instagram the other day, and I shouted them out right back. We’re all just doing such amazing things. I think that level of support is really important for Black students at PWUs because you need that support around you. I feel like that level of, “Hey, you did something, go you!” is very much something I see in the Black community within a PWU because we have to have us .

In addition, several women in the study included photographs of women of color who were their sistafriends. Imani dedicated two full pages in her photo essay to friendships with several young women of color on her campus: “Getting to find opportunities to see friends when[ever] I could really made COVID easier for me [and] lifted my spirit.” The importance of community was echoed by Shona, Karema, and Rylee, whose images (e.g., screenshots of church names) and words depicted how virtual fellowship with what they called “like-minded” Christian young people of diverse backgrounds renewed their faith and their hope in challenging times. Relatedly, Gianna described how close communal bonds developed when women of color stand in solidarity and advocate for social justice: “I’m lucky that my friends from other backgrounds understand what race and inequality is. They’re very knowledgeable, and they will go to protests and be supportive…they know how to be allies.” Collectively, the women's photo essays demonstrated how they countered the severe isolation and loneliness of the COVID-19 pandemic by purposefully spending time with their sistafriends—the young Black women and women of color who supported them, cared for them, and frequently fought for justice alongside them.

(Re)Claiming Rest

In their photo essays, the women discussed how intentionally breaking from the toxicity of certain social media platforms (e.g., Instagram), as well as resisting the obligation to serve as digital mammies who constantly “educate” folks about anti-Black racism, enabled them to reclaim their emotional energy and mental well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. Shona's bright-pink, Black Lives Matter photograph best exemplified this point:

I feel that, as a Black person, you always have to explain why someone should care about racial injustice. I think that during this time, it was really good for me to stop explaining. I just let people take that into their own hands and inform themselves. I mean, Google's a thing.

Echoing Shona, the other women articulated in their photo essays how purposefully removing themselves from toxic social media platforms ultimately gave them more time to cultivate sanctuaries, or places of spiritual healing and rest where Black women “hear our inner voices, [and] comprehend reality with both our hearts and our minds, put[ting] us in touch with divine essence” ( hooks, 1993 , p. 185). Many women found sanctuary in the beauty and tranquility of the outdoors. Imani included a photograph of a lake ( Figure 4 ) in her essay because “one interesting aspect of COVID-19 was getting to explore nature and connect with that side of myself. I’m also a Christian, so connecting with God in the natural environment brought me joy, too.”

Imani's photograph of a lake.

Likewise, Gianna underscored how natural spaces were restful for her: “This semester, I made sure I had more free time to just relax … now I have time where I can just walk around outside. That's been cool, taking a walk around campus and just being able to breathe.” Relatedly, both Jemele and Shona prioritized outdoor sanctuarial spaces, including picnics and the drive-in movie theater, where they could “relax and have fun and chill with friends but still be socially distanced and safe.”

Some women found sanctuary in other restorative practices. During the interview, Karema explained how her photo essay illustrated her Christian faith as sanctuary:

In my project, I included this Bible verse [screenshot]: “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” It represents my beliefs that things will get better, even with this pandemic. It might take months, years, or decades, but things will get better.

Reflecting on a screenshot of Spotify, Rylee noted that music was her sanctuary during the pandemic because “I was super depressed, and music helped me get through. Coconut Oil by Lizzo is really healing for me. Every time I listen to it, I’m recentering my own experience and my own inner beauty by hearing her journey.” Lastly, Chloe found healing in working with a Black female therapist who taught her the power of personal affirmations and mindfulness, and she represented this vital sanctuarial space with a screenshot of the campus counseling center in her photo essay. Taken together, the women's photo essays highlighted how their pursuit of rest within multiple forms of the sanctuary (e.g., social media breaks, music, religious faith, and nature) restored their socioemotional wellness and fostered their persistence during the pandemic.

Nurturing Creativity

Finally, the women's photo essays portrayed how they nourished their spirits during the pandemic through creative expression. Several women mentioned cooking as a fulfilling activity in their photo essays. Imani shared photographs of different dishes she prepared and this written caption: “One thing I did this year during COVID-19 was get into cooking and trying new recipes. I loved experimenting with so many different ingredients. This was something that really helped me feel happy despite the hard time.” Similarly, Rylee featured images of meals she made while listening to one of her favorite songs, “Le Festin,” because “it just represents unbridled joy through cooking, and I love that energy.”

Writing was another popular form of creative expression. Shona's photo essay featured an image of her newspaper article to underscore her love of opinion writing: “I’m a really opinionated person, to be honest. Just to argue and show my perspective on an issue is fun. I found that opinion pieces just helped me express myself the most as a writer.” Relatedly, in her photo essay, Jemele discussed how her creativity enabled her to complete her journalism assignments during the pandemic: “Coming up with story ideas was hard in a virtual environment. During COVID-19, I was limited to my dorm room or isolated locations to shoot video [which] definitely restricted me, but [also] allowed me to be more resourceful and creative.”

Notably, two women's creative expressions foregrounded their familial creative practices. Reflecting on an image of the garment she was working on (see Figure 5 ), Chloe explained why she started crocheting:

I started in September [2020] when I saw this viral image of Harry Styles wearing this cool patchwork cardigan, and it was $1,600! Some TikTokers started making their own versions and teaching others how to make them, and I learned from them. Crocheting helps me decompress and relax, and I’ll do a square while I’m watching Netflix or something. My sister also crochets, and it's cool that we can talk about it.

Chloe's photograph of her crochet cardigan.

During the interview, Karema spoke at length about an image of four Yoruba words (“Ife,” “Ayo,” “Alafia,” and “Ireti”) in her photo essay:

I’ve wanted to learn more Yoruba for a while. It's my family's native language, but my parents didn’t teach it to me. So, I took an introductory online class for Yoruba [in fall 2020] and it made me happy. Yoruba is a beautiful language [and] I was excited to be able to speak more to my grandmother and connect with her.

In sum, images of ancestral languages, crocheting, writing, and cooking in the photo essays demonstrated how the women manifested possibility, passion, and joy throughout the difficult days of the pandemic through their creativities.

Discussion and Implications

Building on and contributing to a growing body of research on the multimodality(ies) of Black college women ( Griffin & Turner, 2023 ; Kynard, 2010 ; Ohito, 2020 ), this article illuminated the visual and textual representations of persistence that seven high-achieving Black undergraduate women rendered in their COVID-19 photo essays. Animated by the legacy of collective struggle and survival of Black people, the women's photographic writings evoked an endarkened persistence that affirmed Black beauty through the love and care of their Black female bodies (e.g., natural hair and physical health) and honored their spirits as reconnecting with sistafriends, reclaiming rest, and nurturing creativity. Together, the women's images and words portray their endarkened persistence as the joy, celebration, and healing of (re)membering and (re)claiming their full Black womanness despite the pandemic crisis. Imani's assertion at the opening of this article—that she is “still here … and there is hope”—underscores the possibilities of persistence that Black undergraduate women manifest in photo essays that resist dehumanizing imagery of Black womanhood (e.g., unbeautiful and unwell) and honor their intersectional ways of knowing, seeing, and being literate in the (COVID-19) world.

Moreover, the findings complement and expand the scholarship on Black girls’ and women's intersectionality(ies) and photographic writings (e.g., Manning et al., 2015 ; Wissman, 2008 ). Examining the women's photo essays through an intersectional multimodal literacy framework made visible the endarkened, engendered, and embodied meanings of their persistence in the pandemic. Although we all experienced the COVID-19 pandemic, the intersectional multimodal literacy framework, coupled with photo essay methods, enables us to “see” the pandemic from seven Black women's unique angles of vision ( Collins, 2009 ; Dillard, 2000 ) derived from their intersecting social locations (i.e., race, gender, and academic status) at a PWU. The women's photographic images, taken from their distinctive intersectional vantage points, illuminate the complex and humanizing ways that they see themselves as Black women, in the fullness of their minds-bodies-spirits and the sacredness of their Black womanness ( Green et al., 2021 ). As such, the women's images of natural Black hairstyles, Bible verses, crocheted cardigans, weight lifting, and close friendships manifested an endarkened persistence that allowed them to “find things that bring joy,” in Imani's words. This work is particularly important in the pandemic era because Black college women deserve intersectional research that enables them to “see the wholeness of our legacy, see who we are and what we’ve produced as Black women” ( Dillard, 2016 , p. 409).

The women's COVID-19 photo essays were composed in out-of-school contexts, yet they offer important insights for reimagining college English in pandemic times. As a “creative literacy practice that refuses whiteness and anti-Blackness” ( Ohito, 2020 , p. 188), photo essays serve as transformative compositional spaces that invite high-achieving Black women to bring their rich multimodal repertoires and full humanity into college English classrooms. When situated within antiracist, trauma-informed compositional pedagogies that validate writing as self-expression, freedom, and healing ( Smith et al., 2022 ), COVID-19 photo essays powerfully (re)position Black undergraduate women as experts on their own lives; (re)authorize their multimodal communicative practices in college learning; and (re)affirm their brilliance, strength, and resilience. Considering that high-achieving Black women are often marginalized in college classrooms ( Davis, 2018 ) and traumatized by conventional writing pedagogies ( Smith et al., 2022 ), photo essays serve as multimodal spaces where they can write openly about their COVID-19 experiences in ways that privilege their intersectional epistemologies, experiences, and creativities. In this way, COVID-19 photo essays can work to displace “Whiteness from the center of the curriculum … ensuring that teaching both extends from and responds to the embodied and emplaced lived experiences of Black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) … students” ( Green et al., 2021 , p. 145). More specifically, by opening new pathways for college English educators to critically listen to high-achieving Black women and other BIPOC students, respectfully witness their truth-telling about pandemic pain and persistence, and teach writing through vulnerability and authenticity, photo essays have the potential to serve as “a catalyst for transformative healing” ( Smith et al., 2022 , p. 1673) for all undergraduate students learning, working, and living beyond the global pandemic.

Finally, this study offers insights for future photo essay research with high-achieving Black undergraduate women in the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings demonstrate how high-achieving Black undergraduate women used their photographic writing to come to voice ( Collins, 2009 ) and articulate how race, gender, and academic status at a PWU shaped their persistence in a pandemic world. However, we must remember that academically successful Black college women are not a monolithic group ( Davis, 2018 ; Patton & Croom, 2017 ). Future photo essay research that attends to other salient identity dimensions (e.g., socioeconomic class, sexual orientation) that intersect with race, gender, and academic status would provide more nuanced understandings of Black undergraduate women's COVID-19 persistence at PWUs. Additionally, photo essay research that documents the persistence of Black high-achieving college women over time would be beneficial, given that the pandemic era will continue to profoundly impact their literacy learning and college experiences at PWUs ( Njoku & Evans, 2022 ).

As of May 3, 2023, more than 104 million people in the United States have contracted COVID-19 ( Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2023 ). As we consider the long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the undergraduate students at our higher education institutions, we, the literacy community, must not forget about high-achieving Black women at PWUs. We owe it to Imani and the other six women in this study to continue conducting research, including photo essay scholarship, that “breaks the silence” surrounding high-achieving Black college women as they navigate intersecting traumas from a global pandemic, racial injustice, social unrest, and personal struggle. It is through their photographic imagery that we learn to “see” high-achieving Black undergraduate women and their persistence in the fullness and sacredness of Black womanhood, endarkening spirit, intellect, hope, and healing within and beyond a pandemic world.

Supplemental Material

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding: The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the University of Maryland College Park (Independent Scholar Research and Creative Work Award).

ORCID iD: Jennifer D. Turner https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4880-5567

Supplemental Material: The Supplemental figures referenced in this article and abstracts in languages other than English are available at http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/suppl/10.1177/1086296X231178524

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