Photographs Document Pandemic Nights

Photog Roderick Topping gains following by capturing Covid-era New Haven.

“I do feel a little isolated myself,” said Topping, who posted his most recent photographs online on Jan. 14. ​“If I didn’t go out every day, just to get a cup of coffee, I would have gone insane by now.”

Early on in the pandemic, he took a camera with him on those walks. On March 31, 2020, he posted a cluster of pictures on social media, with the caption ​“walked the abandoned and socially-distant streets of my neighborhood today.” He posted another group of images on April 13, captioned ​“empty, surreal New Haven.” Then, on May 17, he posted a new series of images — taken at night.

“These photos may not be very pretty or compelling. They are, instead, an attempt to portray the night in my city in these awful times,” Topping wrote. ​“Normally the streets, bars, restaurants, nightclubs at this time of year would be flooded with partiers, young people, old people, happy people, sad people, drunks, lovers and idiots alike. Instead the city is empty, lonely, quiet, and laid bare like a dusty skeleton. It’s creepy, surreal and strangely beautiful all at once. I will always remember these times and hope to never repeat them. Stay well my friends!”

Since then Topping has produced a steady stream of images that he continues to post on social media, to the admiration of his fellow New Haveners — day and night.

“I remember doing night photography 20 or 30 years ago in my early days in New Haven,” Topping said. Night photography was much harder with film. ​“I tinkered around with using really high speed film, which gives you grainy results,” he said. ​“It wasn’t until the advent of high-end digital photography” that he could get the image quality he wanted without having to rely on tripods and long exposures.

And it’s ​“really since the pandemic” that his practice of night photography took off.

“I need to get out of the house, and I find myself walking around,” he said. ​“Whenever I see something cool, I’ll take a picture. A couple times a week I just walk around after dinner and take a few snaps. Sometimes I make more of an effort, but more often than not, it’s just in my pocket.” The it refers to a small Sony digital camera. ​“it’s very compact, very high-quality digital camera that’s made to take a little bit of abuse. And it has a decent zoom lens on it so I can close in on details that I like. I’ve had so many cameras over the years, and it’s really one of the best cameras I’ve had. It can yield professional-grade results if you use it properly.”

The digital camera also gives Topping the chance to capture whatever happens to catch his eye. ​“Usually what happens is that I look at something and think, ​‘is it worth taking a picture?’” He takes them without worrying too much about it. ​“It won’t be until I download the photos and I’m looking at them” on a computer screen ​“that I see it,” that is, the images that Topping deems worth saving.

In taking his nighttime walks over the months of 2020, Topping’s eye has managed to document a city going through a long historic moment — which it is doing, on balance, very quietly. ​“Especially in the first couple months,” he said, ​“the city totally changed its character — dramatically.” People and especially cars, moving or parked, mostly vanished from the streets. This presented an opportunity for Topping to ​“see things without it being choked up with traffic, especially car traffic. I’ve been able to see the city naked, somehow.”

One example of that is the picture he took (during the day) of the Anchor Spa. From the other side of the street, he noticed ​“there was a tree that was bent over at a 90-degree angle and it joined the curve of the window,” he said. When he snapped the picture, he also captured ​“a lone cyclist, and it came together as a nice composition.” He noted that before the pandemic ​“it would have been impossible to get that shot because there are cars parked in front” almost any time of day.

From a strictly photographic perspective, the depopulated streets of New Haven have offered another advantage. ​“I’ve always been shy about taking pictures of people,” Topping said, as he considers it essentially ​“kind of rude,” although ​“I have done it a lot in the past,” he added. He did wedding photography many years ago and discovered that ​“I hate it. I have borderline PTSD from it because it’s so stressful,” he laughed. But more broadly, as a viewer of photography, he said, ​“most of the photography I like doesn’t have a lot of people in it.” In his own image making, ​“I’ve always focused on urban architectural forms and abstractions.” People have a tendency also to take up more bandwidth in viewers’ perceptions of an image. ​“There’s an interesting photograph, and you put a person in it, and it’s the first thing that anyone’s eye is going to go to.”

At the same time, he said,“sometimes when I have a person in” an image, ​“it gives it emotion, or whimsy. There have been a couple photos where I think, ​‘there’s an interesting scene, and what if there were someone walking by?’ I’ll just stand there and wait.” These days that has sometimes meant waiting for a half hour before another person enters the scene.

His walks also mean that he sees the city at a time when many people still don’t see much beyond the confines of their own houses. Topping described how he has an uncle in New Hampshire who has remained isolated in a farmhouse since the beginning of the pandemic. ​“His one weekly expedition into the world is going to a nearby town to buy groceries,” he said. ​“I tell him, ​‘New Haven’s still here. People still go out and do things. It’s just very, very muted.’” People have still been going to restaurants, though it looked to Topping like eateries drew only a quarter to a third of their usual business.

“I’m looking forward to when it’s not like that,” Topping added. ​“I almost don’t remember what it was like when there were cars in the streets, and the hustle and bustle.”

But for now he’ll continue to take his walks around town, and his pictures. ​“In these times it’s so easy to get wrapped up in it, and get depressed and morose. If you’ve got something to distract you, just grab it,” he said.

He was speaking to me by phone from the outdoor seating at Book Trader Cafe, where he was having a coffee. ​“I kind of see a photo right now I want to take,” he said.

Find Roderick Topping’s photos currently on his Facebook and Instagram accounts.