View from My Window

by Barbara Duriau (Editor)

Photos from a lockdown.

Genres: Nonfiction

396 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2020

Reviews

[Liza]

this is a picture book. 4000 pictures which were posted by members of a facebook group during the pandemic. Ms. Duriau started it but then realized that she had created a monster that could suck up all the time she had to make a living as a graphic artist. So she posted that she couldn't cope with all the requests and made a goFundMePage so that people who wanted to see the results could support a book. She got her support and has thanked us with great joy. I am glad that the world includes such creatives.

The photos are almost all taken with cell phones. The views and the composition are often awesome. The quality is not but this is about a message from another human stuck inside. The message is good even if the quality of the photo is ordinary.

I myself did submit a photo but it was not included. I live in a townhouse in Sunnyvale CA. 40 years ago when they built this place, they planted redwood trees next to the buildings. The view from my window is the trunk of a redwood tree that is 5 ft from the house. Plus I took the picture when we were in the worst 4 month fire season of our lives (IMHO Climate change is real). But I love looking at the beautiful pictures our graphic artist did choose. She wisely did not include such depressing photos. The pictures are uplifting. Such a beautiful earth.

[Mark Patton]

I loved this book! I’m not sure what I expected exactly since I have been following this site on Fb since shortly after it began -- a selection of greatest hits? a random sampling? a simple physical version of what had been online? I didn’t read (if that is even the correct word) View from My Window in one go but settled in for a chapter or two at a time over the course of a week or two. What struck me most, strangely, was almost a nostalgia for the beginning of the pandemic waaaay back in March, April, May when the world was coming to grips with how to deal with stay-at-home orders and facing the unknown together, before, that is, the Republican party decided to make this all about politics and science denial, making the US an embarrassment to the rest of the world and sitting idly by while hundreds of thousands died unnecessarily.

[Cienna]

Honestly both inspiring and depressing at the same time. Some of these photos are gorgeous while others show me how dirty the world can be. The stories can be equally inspiring as well as tragic. 2020 really took us for a ride.

[Kay Hart]

Oh my!! What a truly remarkable book. A compilation of photos from around the world during the COVID pandemic. Simply stunning to see so many views. It makes you realize that we are all in this together. It has challenged our strengths and brought us all together.

[Julie Failla Earhart]

In March 2020 widespread lockdown spread across the world. From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, citizens in every country were told to stay home, to stay away from people who do not live in your household, to wear masks, to use lots and lots of sanitizer, to not go outside if it could be helped. The novel Coronavirus-19 was spreading around the globe at a breakneck speed. Hospitals were overrun; people were dying by the thousands on a daily basis. It was scary stuff!

On March 22, 2020, Barbara Duriau opened a Facebook group called “View From My Window.” Faced with only the view from her studio window in Amsterdam, she wondered if others were having the same feelings of anxiety, isolation and loneliness. With this new group, she invited the world to snap a picture from a window in their home and post it.

On March 23, Barbara posted her view. Almost immediately, “344 people accepted her invitation. The following day there were 2,675. One week later, 50,000!...On April 26…(the) Facebook group had more than two million members.” When I checked today (April 25, 2021), Facebook indicated 2.2 million members. Soon, it was more than Barbara could handle alone, and she built a team to keep the site updated.

Views from windows (or doors) from almost every country in the world---city and countryside—began popping up on Facebook, bringing a few moments of respite from the deadly disease that had the world by its throat.

I’m not sure how the book came to be, but I don’t care. Flipping through the urban, country, seasonal, landscape pictures, and those with views with all sorts of animals---made me feel like I wasn’t locked in my home but able to travel the world, seeing things I will never, ever get to see. Those photos are amazing!

Thanks to my wonderful sister-in-law, Mary, for gifting this book to me as postponed birthday gift. I LOVE IT!

View From My Window receives 6 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

[Christina]

Such a beautiful little book that shows the wonders of the world, and shows how people spend their life, how they life. Mostly beautiful moments, nature scenery, also a few sad views and brickwalls, a sweet compilation that warms the heart - 2 years after the pandemic it feels so surreal and still real. One star less because I was missing a few more "sad" views to keep im perspective that not everybody has a view or a "nice view", although we all want it.
But still great book, great size, decent images and Overall an amazing project!

[Sharon Loudon]

This page or whomever is in charge on FB is heartless. Four times I tried to post my airplane photos and story because I'm stuck at home.
Not only did they write me back telling me I'm unable to read their rules but the blocked me.
Good riddance

[Emily White]

This book had such a great feeling of community, like none of us are in this alone. It was a beautiful collection of photographs and stories.

[Mary]

I was invited into this Facebook group within a week of its creation in March, 2020. Within a month, there were two million members and the group had to be closed because the volume of posts waiting for approval was overwhelming. Every picture was taken from the photographer’s window, door, or balcony, to show that person’s experience of the pandemic lockdown. The book, which was “crowd sourced”, publishes 400 pages of the most beautiful, unique, and/or poignant photographs. Many are accompanied by stories of what the person was going through at that moment in time. This is a unifying and “one of a kind” record of life in the year of the Coronavirus.

[Gem]

I loved the idea of this having followed the Facebook group during lockdowns. The book is really beautiful and a gorgeous keepsake to remember a very bizarre time. My only slight negativw was that there seems to be a disproportionate amount of pics from certain countries, namely the USA. While the pictures from there are great, I'd have liked to have seen a bit more of a spread of nationalities to reflect the global members. Despite this I still love the book. It's printed on thick paper too and is good quality.