“These images here are taken from a selection made over the course of six hours, on March 10th, 2020 in North London. I worked quickly, covered a lot of ground (geographically), and shot eight rolls of film. Whilst the occasion was joyous, there was a tension in the air: the Orthodox Jewish culture is founded on immense family and community ties, and you could overhear conversations about "the virus". It felt close. Nobody knew how close. But it felt already like a threat that would strain the ties so intrinsic to these people. Looking at these images and seeing them in scenes of such togetherness, I find it hard to imagine them now all so separated.
For the most part I was either ignored or smiled at. I'm not someone who asks to take a photo; those aren't the kinds of photos I am looking for. Everyone seemed comfortable with my being there as an obvious outsider. At one point an older Hasidic man stopped me to ask about my camera. "Film"? He exclaimed. "Ah you're 'alt madish'" he says to me, smiling, still holding his archaic mobile phone. "It means old fashioned." "Make us look good, OK? Show people how good all this is."
Part of this work is likely to form a very small piece of what will become Charles Caves’ first book.
The images were all made on Tri-X film which Charles stand-develops in Rodinal 1:100 for 80mins. He generally uses the stand-development process for anything important, just incase he has accidentally slightly under-exposed a shot. Developing this way produces a totally decent negative from anything exposed between 200iso and 800iso. Charles frantically made all the prints in Darkroom on one of their trusty Kaiser enlargers just before the lockdown. He hopes to go back and shoot Purim in future years - maybe even in some different countries. Perhaps that will become a project in its own right.
Check out more of Charles’ great work on his Instagram @charlescavephoto
