Corona Mornings. Places, real and imagined.

During the Coronavirus pandemic lockdown, we were permitted outdoors to exercise. We were lucky since the Hackney Marshes are right behind our house and so there was nature to visit and explore and it made for some fine early morning walks. It was mostly the same walks every day, and every day I took my camera to explore the neighbourhood anew. As I started to yearn for distant places I came to see the area in a different light and then saw different places within the area itself. Some I had visited, many I had only seen in pictures and was now imagining, others were not even places, but notions of a time I yearned to return to: when my freedom of movement, which had now been curbed, was at my full disposal. At that time I never fully realized or appreciated this freedom as such, but simply took it as a given. Aside from a few exceptions most were shot in the Hackney Marshes. © Marcus Bastel 2020