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London April 2020
Haunting images of the capital in lockdown

IT’S difficult not to think of the 2002 post-apocalyptic horror film 28 Days Later when looking at the images of London in the early stages of lockdown framed by photographer Mike Goldwater.

The eerie emptiness of the city in the opening sequences of that film — which centres on the breakdown of society following the accidental release of a highly contagious virus — have an echo in the striking filmed images he took while cycling around the city.

They are, he says, a “creative response to the lockdown” and were inspired by a film made by friends of drifting in real-time along the river Stour in Kent by canoe. “I thought a ride through empty London filmed from my bike might work as well.”

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