LONDON (Bywire News) - As all legal Covid restrictions have been lifted in England, the nation has navigated a surreal piece of history that will be discussed and documented for centuries to come. After collating some of our unexpected positives and standout moments, PastBook - Europe's largest photo book service - now unveils the nation's pandemic pictures through their campaign, 'Closing the Book on Lockdown'. You can create your own free PastBook here.
Over this period, the nation pulled together as a collective – just under 70 million adults, children and pets – joined a global community, unified in their digitised experiences of banana bread baking, 5k running challenges, pandemic birthing, at-home haircuts and Tiger King. Now, PastBook's campaign shares the moments that define a time like no other.
About the campaign
PastBook is enabling us to preserve the last 16 months of our most memorable but often forgettable moments. By selecting the dates March 2020 - July 19th 2021, the nation can reflect on their personal pandemic experience through PastBook's free photo book creation service here. PastBook is also encouraging users to share their lockdown experiences, highlights, and most significant memories from the past year through the hashtag #closingthebook.
Bringing digital records to life
Throughout lockdown, our social media accounts replaced many of the traditional engagements of daily life.
Now, new research from PastBook has revealed:
- 29% of Brits now say their account media account is the best representation they have of their pandemic experience
- Yet 52% of the nation do not own any physical copies of the images captured on these accounts
PastBook creates a physical capsule that we can look back on in years to come, allowing us a way to reflect and share our most unforgettable years in living memory. The platform's sophisticated technology automatically creates a unique capsule for each user by selecting the highlights of their Instagram, Facebook, Dropbox, Flickr, Picasa, computer, phone or tablet and instantly arranging them into a high-quality photo book.
Wouter Staatsen, CEO of PastBook, discusses the importance of documenting the surrealness of the last 16 months:
"Over the last 16 months, the world has experienced a period that will go down in history books. Traditionally, this time would have been documented through written letters, newspapers or printed photographs - yet in today's digital age, we have all been able to document our pandemic experience through our social media accounts, sharing our highs and lows with long-distance loved ones.
Now, as all restrictions in the UK will be lifted on July 19, PastBook is encouraging the nation to document their own slice of history through our campaign, Closing the Book on Lockdown. Taken from our most precious shared memories on our social media accounts, PastBook create well-curated, stylistic logs of these social accounts and turn them into image-based memoirs - preserved forever. As such, we all have a way to turn our own history into a keepsake that we will cherish forever."