Images of a Pandemic at Meredith

COVID-19 has impacted life around the world, but in these photographs I see answers to questions that I constantly ask friends who are freshmen in college. How do you document the impact of a pandemic? It was a question that I initially fought to answer, yet the answer lies in these photos: emptiness. Most college students have struggled to keep away depression as it creeps in, but maybe what they are fighting is rooted in loneliness. My camera acts as a political communicator showing the result of restrictions on campus. Social distancing leads to physical isolation as well as emotional, leaving us with an empty campus.

Description: the student lounge in the Cate Center, nearly empty on a school day; outside a residence hall in the quad; the deserted quad between Vann and Johnson Hall; the parking lot behind the library, full despite few students being seen out on campus; empty stacks in the Carlyle Campbell Library. Photos by Melissa Taylor.

By Melissa Taylor, Staff Writer and Photographer