Corona v Camera Industry

Fashion photography will be one of the hardest hit industries during this global catastrophe and we are going to have to come to terms with it being a ‘how much?’ scenario, than an ‘if’. Up to now we have had unprecedented cancellations of travel, sport, festivals and events and lockdowns of bars, restaurants, cities and states and in some places we are yet to see the worst of it.

I, myself, am a fashion photographer in Manchester and rely on freelance bookings for fashion brands and marketing agencies and the reality is that these type of businesses are preparing for the worst and limiting all the non permanent staff, I read today that Primark, for instance, has written to suppliers asking them to put a halt on all current and future production and the purchasing of any materials for the retailer and I predict that most other retailers will follow suit if they haven’t already. This indicates tough times ahead for the self employed, the government has acted quickly and admirably to try and help the UK workforce by guaranteeing salaries and deferring VAT payments but nothing seems to be there to help the self employed as yet and this could spell doom for creatives with no rainy day funds.

The most important thing is peoples health at the minute and doing your part to stop the spread, if you are worried about your future income you need to heed the governments advice and STAY HOME, the sooner we stop the spread, the sooner things will get back to something like normal. In the coming days expect things to get worse, the Olympics will be postponed if not cancelled altogether, which in a recent blog post by myself I mentioned was linked directly to camera sales and launches, and in the UK expect an imminent lockdown and more drastic measures outlined by the government.

Hopefully it won’t all be doom and gloom and we can get through this. Keep up to date with your government’s advice and the advice of the WHO as well as keeping abreast of updates from the chancellor, the bank of England and HMRC, there will be relief available even if it doesn’t seem sufficient.

I wish you all the best and I genuinely hope this doesn’t affect your business or employees too much.