It is May now and I am writing this post in Mid- March so hopefully the closures have stopped, Covid-19 has been eliminated and the losses are low. Hopefully things are improving for the world after this global pandemic.
You may be wondering why I am writing about this now since everything started happening for the US in January, February and March. The truth is I always work a head on my blog posts, content is hard for me and ever changing. Could I have scheduled this earlier? Absolutely; but then I stopped myself because today as I am writing this things are being closed, cancellations are happening, people are scared about the future. That’s all I would have to write about, that’s depressing.
So I decided to wait so I can make changes and updates to this post.
Today is March 17, 2020 and I was laid off from my part time position at Books A Million like millions of others seeing their jobs close to prevent the spread of this illness. I understood the reasoning, I expected this to happen in wake of previous closures but when it finally happens it becomes a jarring reality of what do I do now?
I am fortunate with freelance work, I have built a fairly stable business using my photography and graphic design for marketing purposes. I can only hope that as things improve economically the work resumes at an increased level after cancellations from some clients which I again expected.
Today it is hard to know what the future holds for us. Today is a lot of peoples worst fears, no work, no money, and no idea how they will survive. I can’t say I want things to go back as they were because I do not. This crisis has pointed out glaring flaws in the world, things I want to see addressed. But I want to see everyone succeeding with a quality of life and financial burden of this pandemic lifted from their shoulders. I want their jobs to still exist and I want to see real change for a brighter future.
It’s April now and things are still shut down, as a business I am dipping into savings to keep the bare necessities of my business running. All my events and spring sessions have been canceled, I like many have no idea if they will get rescheduled as people are facing financial hardships.
One of the first things I came to learn starting a photography business was what kind of service I would be classified as and that’s a Luxury Service. Photography isn’t necessary to anyone but my own survival (mine because its how I stay mentally healthy and make a living). Photography is a luxury good because of it being a want over a need so in this current global climate I recognize the lack of need for what I offer.
But it is hard to watch what I have spent years working for crumble in the matter of months. Can I survive this? Possibly, I am doing what I can to see my business through, might it go from my livelihood to a hobby again? That’s what I am hoping as a best possible out come to closing, I am lucky that I have a secondary income slated to start when this pandemic shut down is over. I will survive even if my business looks entirely different when this is over.
In light of that I have been making difficult decisions and am pairing down my client galleries. This save on website costs, I have scaled back as much as I can on business expenses so I can still keep what is absolutely necessary going on savings I have squirreled away.
I kept hoping this post get more uplifting before its post date but obviously things have to get pretty bad before they get better. Perhaps soon we will have have happier news to post.
Until then stay safe and healthy.
Tiffany
Exposure One Studios
PS. Feel free to tell me your Covid-19 story in the comments.