David Allison

David Allison is a photographer currently based in Winchester, Hampshire. He is interested in documenting people, their relationship with their surrounding space and found objects. Using the camera as tool for documentation and remembering. David studied photography at University of Portsmouth between 2015-2018, where he achieved his BA (Hons). This then led him to study MA Photography at the Royal College of Art to further develop his practice and research.

Socially Distant is a series of photographs taken during all three national lockdowns in my hometown Winchester, England between 2020-2021. During the height of the coronavirus pandemic.The public were all urged to stay at home if possible and when going outside maintain a physical distance between people to reduce spreading the virus. Everything was changing so quickly. I was still living in London at the time but decided to come back home to be with family in Winchester. A few days before the lockdown was announced.

I chose to spend my one hour of limited time outside walking around Winchester with my camera observing the city as a flanuer would, something I hadn’t done since I was much younger. But this was different. This was a significant moment to document. Socially Distant shows the disruption Covid-19 has had on how we interact with space and found objects within the space. The atmosphere was eery, uncomfortable. It felt as though something had happened and was about to happen.

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