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In This Together

Documenting COVID-19 in the Commonwealth

Name: Steven Hash
Date of Submission: 2020 July 22

Biography: My name is Steven Hash. I am 38 Years Old. I have lived in Lexington, Ky since
1988. I am a Production Assistant at a TV station here in town. I am also a Photographer.

COVID-19 Experience:

Going to the movies has always been a big part of my life. I love going and experience the
movies on the big screen. There is no experience like it. Whether you are a teenager, a college
student, an adult, or even a young kid. Cinema as a whole means a lot to people.

Living through the COVID-l9 pandemic has been a massive disruption on everyone's daily
social life. I recognized this in a lot of small ways. To seeing people lose their jobs, to stores
closing, etc. As this has gone on, the fact that we have not been able to do regular everyday
social activities has been one of the hardest things to go through among other things.

For me, the fact that I have not been in a movie theater in over six months has been terrible. On
March 22 2020, I took my camera out on that Sunday and decided to take some pictures of the
town. It was a few weeks into the pandemic really hitting the public. Going out this Sunday, it
really hit you how hard COVID has really affected everything around us.

That included the movie theater that I always go to. Five days earlier, Cinemark had shut down
all their theater chains for the foreseeable future due to COVID-l9. I decided to go to theater to
see if anything around the building was worth taking a photograph of. What I saw shocked me.

The parking lot was completely empty and there was a sign on the door telling customers that the
theater was closed. The most startling thing for me was seeing the row of empty Movie Theater
stalls along the front of the building. Usually these stalls are always filled with movie posters of
films that are playing and of films that are coming soon. But nothing was there. Nothing to
promote the films. N0 cool artwork from a poster to a popular film. Nothing at all.

It's the little things that always hit you to let you know that things have changed. Seeing the
theater empty and devoid of any sign of life hits you hard. It let me know that this pandemic was
real and it was going to be around for a long time.