Thomas Denney

London, Christmas 2020

Regent Street
Regent Street
Regent's Park
Regent’s Park
The Mall
The Mall
Piccadilly Circus
Piccadilly Circus

For a long time I’ve had walking around and photographing a desserted central London on Christmas Day on my bucket list. Ordinarily the city would be bustling with tourists, workers, and shoppers every day of the year, but inevitably this year was an exception. Instead whenever I’ve gone for walks or runs around Westminster I’ve been confronted with vast empty spaces.

Pictures of desserted cities around the world became a theme of the pandemic. At its outset I hoped they wouldn’t. However, on Christmas Day I walked around the West End and took the above. There were a few others with a similar idea, and around Oxford Circus and Trafalgar Square there were still plenty of people — although I suspect like me they were locals, not tourists.