Life Under Lockdown in Wuhan, China

(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- Wuhan resident Daniel Xie had been preparing to leave town to visit relatives for the Lunar New Year holiday when authorities locked down the city on Jan. 23 in an attempt to contain the spread of the new coronavirus. Since then, the 33-year-old professional cameraman has been documenting life at the epicenter of the outbreak. “I witnessed a city of 11 million turn into a ghost town,” he says. “I wanted to record this very special period, save it as some historical memory.”

In an interview, Xie explained his method. “I couldn’t get any protective clothing or goggles in the earlier days of the outbreak, so I was basically wearing a mask when I went out filming. My routine would be I pick one different spot to shoot photos every day, so I got to cover quite a wide range of the city in the past month or so.”

Xie says that because he lives in a mixed commercial-residential development, he was subject to less-stringent quarantine measures, which allowed him to move around the city more freely. Still, he often encountered resistance from police enforcing the quarantine. “I got kicked out or warned not to take photos frequently,” he says.

Xie’s photos depict the eerie desolation that descended on the normally bustling city. Images showing people in head-to-toe protection gear only emphasize the otherworldliness of the situation. Xie says it was often impossible to get any information about his human subjects, who avoided him out of concern that he might be contagious. “Sometimes I really want to find a stranger to chat with, but people are just staying away from each other.”