The day before Melbourne went into its first lockdown – on March 30, 2020 – we sent Broadsheet photographer Pete Dillon out to capture the city. He found it deserted. “This is the emptiest Melbourne’s ever felt – both figuratively and literally,” he wrote.

We published his photographs in a gallery with the headline, A City Holding Its Breath: Melbourne Captured in the Time of Coronavirus.

Almost 18 months on, now in its sixth lockdown, the city is still holding its breath.

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We asked Broadsheet photographer Jake Roden to document it. And armed with his camera and a work permit, a grey-skied ghost town is what he was met with. Iconic spaces, thoroughfares and trams seemed almost abandoned. Shopfronts were padlocked shut. And high-end window displays remained lit up, but entirely empty.

“It felt like the land of the long white van,” says Roden. “Melbourne was entirely populated by construction workers and police when it should have been bustling during morning peak. It really topped off how haunting the city felt that morning.

“I managed to walk up the middle of Little Bourke Street almost entirely uninterrupted, save for one car and a litany of ‘For Lease’ signs. I was demonstrably upset, particularly after seeing some of the restaurants that just left – the ones that had tried to comply with the regulations and to pivot across a plethora of food-delivery services, but knew they weren’t coming back this time.”

“In isolation, it probably [wouldn’t be] that distressing,” he says. “But after two hours of this grim and depressing walk, it felt overwhelming.”

jakeroden.com