While some of us were indoors spraying Windex on our groceries during the COVID-19 pandemic, others took the time to explore how to visually relate to that time through passion projects. Photographer and author John Lazzaro did just that, spending those years and then some exploring, photographically, the history of sanatoriums in the United States to produce his latest book, Sanatorium.
Lazzaro has previously published books featuring his urban exploration, starting with The Walls Still Talk: A Photographic Journey Through Kings Park Psychiatric Center in his home on Long Island, New York, and then branching out to the entire state with Vanishing New York: Ruins Across the Empire State.
Lazzaro drove across the country documenting these abandoned facilities that played an integral part in the tuberculosis epidemic of the early 1900s, marrying his passion for urban exploration with a nationwide look at this period in time for the country.
“Certainly, me being a photographer of the urban landscape, there was an appeal to capture the abandoned buildings,” Lazzaro said. “But it was also an interesting part of medical history in terms of how we treated patients. If you look at it with the lens of what everyone experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, the isolation that people felt at sanatoriums was probably remarkably similar to what we experienced during lockdown.”
Part of Lazzaro’s interest stems from the architecture used in creating these unique structures.
“I wanted to focus more on the architecture, because the architecture of sanatoriums was part of the healing process. You look at the sun porches and how they were constructed, some of the mosaic tiling that was incorporated into the design, which was seen as inspiring the healing process,” Lazzaro said.
Part of Lazzaro’s process to capture that architecture, and what separates the photography in his books from that of the average hobbyist urban explorer, is his unique choice of gear. Lazzaro shoots with a Canon EOS 5D Mark IV paired with a Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II Tilt-Shift Lens, a lens that helps keep straight lines straight in architectural photos with its unique design.
In addition to off-the-beaten-path lenses, Lazzaro had to literally go off the beaten path for some of the photos in his book, in one case taking a kayak out to a site that was not accessible in any other way but through the water.
That kind of dedication to the craft is what resulted in Sanatorium, which was released in April. You can purchase a copy of Sanatorium and see more of Lazzaro’s work at www.johnlazzarophoto.com.
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