The times we have lost and the times we have gained

A legacy of the pandemic

My last blog post was in 2020 ! – which still feels like yesterday somehow, as the last two years have passed in such peculiar fashion. We’ve lost time, we’ve gained time. It’s been hard on us all for a myriad of reasons big and small.

The inability to plan, a sense of lost purpose, a feeling of lost identities and living with such uncertainty. Not to mention people directly affected by the C word itself; losing loved ones, or working on the frontline.

The wedding industry has struggled too, many of my colleagues taking on second jobs to support their families throughout it. I thank my fellow wedding photographers for their support throughout this time, as I had my own hurdles to cross. We’re a family. I also lost weddings, there were many cancellations and postponements that I was unable to fulfil and my business built on love, has not escaped sacrifice.

I was lucky in that, since 2019 I have worked in television, and when the first lockdown hit, I was in the midst of working on Remarkable Places to Eat (series 2) for BBC2 and then was furloughed and juggled homeschooling my two children. When the furlough ran out and the production ended I was fortunate to begin working on another programme, called ‘Earthsound’ for Apple TV, blue-chip natural history documentary which has and continues to keep me busy since 2020 with production being finalised in 2023.

As its been so long since my last blog post, and as my presence on social media has waned, I wanted to put my hand up, wave and say I’m still here! Negotiating this liminal time like everyone else, still very much married to my identity as photographer.

And just to prove I haven’t fallen off the face of the Earth, here are a few of my personal photographs that sum up those in-between times. I have moved house in the height of lock-down, home-schooled, ran a ‘marathon’ (8 x 5km runs) with my children (I think they’ve forgiven me), walked endlessly in woodland worrying about the world and pondering existence and discovered a new love of astro-photography!

I’ll be back soon making up lost time with some long over-due wedding blogs.

Work is love, made visible.