Life Under Lockdown in Wuhan, China

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.”