pandemic

Practical Steps for Wedding Shooters to Stay Safer During COVID-19

It’s difficult to stay safe right now as a normal human, just trying to get groceries and make a living. It’s more difficult if you’re an event or wedding photographer. As an event photographer or wedding photographer, you might be exposed to crowds of people from all over the country, and in some cases from all over the world.

Photographer Tests the Best Masks for Working During the Pandemic

If you’re a photographer who has to work or is choosing to work during the COVID-19 pandemic, then you’ve probably been looking for a good mask. I was too. I wanted mask that looked professional and felt comfortable. After doing some Amazon searches, I thought I found one that was perfect. Well, I’ve shot a few weddings while masked in the heat now, and it caused me to reevaluate my decision and try other masks out.

Lasers Reveal How Well Different Types of Facemasks Work

With a supply crunch in medical-grade facemasks, the general public has been turning to homemade masks in order to slow the spread of COVID-19. Now researchers are using lasers to reveal how effective different kinds of DIY masks are at blocking tiny droplets from coughs and sneezes.

Find Mindfulness in Photographing Your Kids

One morning last week, my two-year-old climbed up onto the window seat with his treasured panda bear Lovey fresh off of raiding his sister’s lip gloss collection and pressed his cheek to the window glass.

Nikon USA Reopens Repair Facilities for Mail-In Service

As states around the country begin the process of re-opening after COVID lockdown, Nikon USA has officially re-opened its service facilities. Service centers are still closed for walk-in service, but if your camera needs fixing, you can now send it in by mail.

Photographers on Facing Up to Mental Health in a Pandemic

For someone like myself, who suffers from quite bad anxiety during normal times, it’s safe to say facing potentially a whole calendar year of no work or income isn’t exactly a great tonic for one’s mental health. I have joked with my wife for a while now that at some point I want to take a year off -- this isn’t quite what I had in mind!

Photos of Food Banks in the UK During Coronavirus

As coronavirus lockdowns around the world ground economies to a halt, food banks in various countries have seen a huge surge in demand. UK-based photographer Charlie Clift started volunteering at his local food bank and then decided to document the situation with his camera.

When Was the Last Time You Tried Local Travel?

So you have spent years packing up your camera and jumping on a plane. Then a pandemic shut down borders killing travel plans overnight and you are not sure where your next story is going to come from. Where do you go for those sweet photos or that glorious content you had been able to churn out as fast as you could make it?

Commercial Photography Working Procedures in the Time of COVID-19

COVID-19 has brought unprecedented challenges to many areas of the economy in the past few months. As we emerge from lockdown situations, businesses will continue to have a need for fresh commercial photography, whether it is for new marketing efforts, making portraits of new faces as leadership and staff undergo changes, documenting new facilities and infrastructure projects, or communicating with stakeholders about a company’s efforts to keep workers safe and healthy during this ongoing crisis.

Photographers Turn Their Homes Into Cameras to Capture Pandemic Life

Billions of people around the world have had their lives turned upside down by the COVID-19 pandemic, and Brazilian photographer Bruno Alencastro recently came up with an interesting concept for capturing what life is like during these difficult times. He and other photographers turned their homes into camera obscuras and created portraits in their isolated upside-down worlds.

American Idol is Being Shot on iPhone Rigs During Lockdown

As photo/video production crews and their high-end equipment are locked down in the COVID-19 pandemic, companies are getting creative with getting the shots they need. Supermodel Naomi Campbell recently shot her own portrait for a magazine cover with an iPhone, and now it has come to light that American Idol has gone that same route.

Shoot Productions in COVID-19 Times

The sudden global stop of many types of content production, ranging from full-blown TV/film through to commercial photo shoots, has hit the creative industry hard. With agencies unable to organize a shoot for a brand in the usual manner, and most photographers unable to leave their homes, we are in a situation where we are having to really think outside the box.

How COVID-19 Has Impacted the Photo Industry

As a photographer, I am bombarded by people's experiences of how they have been affected by the outbreak of COVID-19. It doesn’t seem to matter where I look it’s everywhere. My Facebook feed is full of questions being asked by a host of photographers, along with the usual questions about what to do when you have lost your ‘Mo-Jo’.

Doing a Personal Photo Project During Social Distancing

Living in the part of New York where the first confirmed case of COVID-19 virus was discovered earlier this year, things have been pretty weird. Our corporate photography studio is in Midtown Manhattan, things there are completely shut down. Even if we were able to lawfully work, there is no work to do as we deal with corporate clients and they all have strict stay at home policies.

NYC Mayor’s Social Distancing ‘Photo Hotline’ Flooded with Obscene Pics

New York City's mayor took to social media this past weekend to encourage New Yorkers to report each other for social distancing violations by snapping photos and texting them to a special tip line. The program has been highly controversial, to say the least, and the number was even briefly shut down due to the overwhelming flood of obscene photos being sent in.

US Camera Sales Dropped by 64% Last Month; Only Luggage is Doing Worse

As the coronavirus pandemic brings the world economy to its knees, retail intelligence firm Stackline put together a report identifying the 100 fastest growing and 100 fastest declining industries based on e-commerce data from March. No surprise, the outlook is especially grim for cameras.

Photos of Unusual Masks Seen in the Coronavirus Pandemic

Sherry walks up to me on an abandoned street in the Meatpacking District, and in spite of it being a warm, springlike Saturday morning, there isn’t a soul around. She’s wearing a silver sequin dress, massive silver sequin boots, and a silver-sequined, homemade double-cloth mask over her face, stitched together from an old boyfriend’s T-shirt and a bygone dress.

5 Ways to Creatively Upskill Your Wedding Photography at Home

COVID-19 isolation is a tricky time for wedding photographers. Upskilling might already be on your radar as you think about putting time into your wedding photography business over this time where weddings have been banned pretty much across the globe. But I’d like to suggest some out-of-the-box ways that we can upskill as wedding photographers in this time that you might not have thought of yet.

5 Ways Photographers Can Use Social Distancing as an Opportunity

I want to start by saying that if you or your family and friends are impacted by the current events of COVID-19, I send my sincerest condolences. The tragedy, pain, and suffering that the world is going through is immensely saddening and should not be taken lightly, so we should all be taking the necessary precautions to help prevent the spread through social distancing.

Photographers Raise Over $90,000 to Help Their Out-of-Work Assistants

Several big name photographers are using their art to support a critical part of our creative community: their assistants. By selling limited edition prints, photographers like Tim Tadder and Erik Almas have raised tens of thousands of dollars to help get their crews through this difficult time.

VSCO Terminates One Third of Its Staff as Market Shifts ‘Overnight’

GoPro isn't the only company whose balance sheet has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. VSCO—the startup behind the photo sharing app and community of the same name—announced that it was forced to let go of nearly one third of its entire workforce as the market environment changed "overnight."

I Took a Virtual Photography Road Trip Using Google Street View

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been asked to stay home and shelter in place. This restriction has only increased my desire to explore and road trip. I still need to create and think critically throughout this time, but if I can’t go to new places, how can I make new work?

How to Shoot Portraits Through FaceTime

If anything good has come out of the current lockdown, it’s the many wonderful ways people have been finding to stay creative. When the coronavirus began to take hold and necessary government instructions rendered my wedding and portrait photography business inoperable, I had to deal with the shock and financial implications of it like any other photographer. It also threw up another challenge: how do we as creatives stay creative?

This Photographer Shot a Wet Plate Portrait Over Video Chat

Photographers around the world have been getting creative to keep their skills sharp during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and widespread home quarantine. While many photographers are experimenting with doing remote photo shoots over video chat, Shane Balkowitsch took it to a new level by capturing a wet plate portrait.

Context Matters When Viewing COVID-19 Photos

Since mid-March, various policies have been implemented at the state and federal level in the U.S. to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus and the disease it causes, COVID-19.