203 Days and Counting : An essay about apparent insignificances

“ 203 Days and counting “ is an essay composed of a series of images produced during quarantine due to Covid-19. Most of them were taken at my apartment in the city, some at a weekend retreat, both in São Paulo, Brazil, and reflect this period of a contemplative mood when time seemed suspended. This is a diary about the isolation experienced during these days.

I started this quarantine thinking about opportunities the isolation could uncover: a needed time for contemplation and a slower pace of living. Slowly I became self-conscious about my living space, my body, and my emotions.

Guided by this contemplative state of mind, my gaze reconfigured the sense of the simple. An empty place of silence, a harmonic cadence that registered apparent insignificance.

The rarefied morning light announces a new day that sneaks in through the window, moves through the curtain weave to warmly illuminate our intimacy. At the end of the day, the light is gone, and with it many times my energy too. Moods change. Contradictory emotions cohabit in an often tired body. There is, however, this infinite beauty that pulsates in the small details, which usually goes unnoticed in our daily routines. Capturing this sensation throws me into an ethereal, delicate, and melancholic atmosphere. Observing the images, I am moved to this timeless place of diffuse spatiality. It seems that I am denying the existence of things in their time as an escape from reality.

The images presented in this collection are observations of the everyday personal moments that poetically document what it means to be living through the time of the pandemic

Finally, a question: in the future, will this very particular moment that we have been going through be also considered insignificant ??

© Ana Leal - Day 38
i

Day 38

© Ana Leal - Day 9
i

Day 9

© Ana Leal - Day 22
i

Day 22

© Ana Leal - Day 194
i

Day 194

© Ana Leal - Day 68
i

Day 68

© Ana Leal - Day 171
i

Day 171

© Ana Leal - Day 16
i

Day 16

© Ana Leal - Day 82
i

Day 82

© Ana Leal - Day 111
i

Day 111

© Ana Leal - Day 7
i

Day 7

© Ana Leal - Day 99
i

Day 99

© Ana Leal - Day 165
i

Day 165

© Ana Leal - Day 55
i

Day 55

© Ana Leal - Day 200
i

Day 200

© Ana Leal - Day 158
i

Day 158

© Ana Leal - Day 172
i

Day 172

© Ana Leal - Day 147
i

Day 147

© Ana Leal - Day 105
i

Day 105

© Ana Leal - Day 122
i

Day 122

© Ana Leal - Day 123
i

Day 123

Latest Projects

Sign up to our weekly newsletter

Stay in the loop


We will send you weekly news on contemporary photography. You can change your mind at any time. We will treat your data with respect. For more information please visit our privacy policy. By ticking here, you agree that we may process your information in accordance with them. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.