Page 20 - Capture Nov-Jan 2021

a look back at 2020 wedding & portrait
with retail and consumer-based technology becoming more and more accessible, and forcing professional photographers to really step up their game to be able to show value in what they do. As a Victorian who has had their business all but shut for most of this year already due to stay-at-home restrictions, it’s become equally challenging to take such a financial hit when your business model as a wedding/portrait photographer is designed around having to do the work you do in the presence of your client,” she states. “In an industry that is already deemed a luxury and not a necessity, the ability to keep your head above water during such times can be quite the struggle.”
Online platforms such as Zoom have now become her greatest ally, she adds. “Although it removes the ability for clients to touch and feel products in person, it has forced me to update the way I can show products knowing that clients may not have any other opportunity to do so. For photographers whose service model has allowed clients to purchase after the fact and not upfront, it has been vital to adapt to that new environment to still be able to meet sales goals, she says. “At the moment, my sales average for clients I’ve been able to serve in between lockdown periods seems to have stayed the same, which is positive.” More clients have asked for digital files in the past year, she notes, sometimes with and sometimes without the purchase of printed products.
Being right for what’s wanted
Australian wedding photographer Samm Blake has lived in New York for the last eight years, where COVID’s effects have been particularly vicious. “I lost all my bookings for the year when COVID first hit in March-April. Every last one of them,” she says. “I wasn’t even sure if I would be shooting anyone with everyone moving their weddings until 2021 – a huge loss of income. Every wedding I had booked for 2020 was either postponed until 2021 or cancelled. So, with all the weddings moving to 2021, I couldn’t take new bookings for next year because they’d taken all the popular dates.”
By August, with only two months left of the wedding season, New York was still only allowing weddings with under fifty guests, but micro-weddings had become the new trend, she adds, and people began booking her again from June. Zoom weddings also became popular. “One Zoom wedding I shot was the bridal couple and me,” she recalls. “They literally got married over Zoom. The officiate, the bride’s
father, was in another state. I was the witness. But that was abnormal. Most people chose to have at least their parents present.”
Blake is finding that she is now sometimes being booked for two weddings – the micro-wedding and a larger one next year. “People had already paid for all the expenses like the dress and flowers,” she notes. Engagement shoots are also popular. She has been observing a re-evaluation of the big wedding as well. “COVID has taught couples that weddings are not about the big showiness that has been a feature over the last few years,” she says. “People have been reminded of what a wedding is really all about – family and connection, and being able to come together, so I feel there will be shift change to more authentic wedding photography.” She is already noticing a trend towards more candid documentary photography, and less of the showcase of the pretty dress, pretty flowers, and pretty décor. This is a positive sign for Blake, who tends to be hired for “the real stuff”. Elopement photography is also on the rise for Blake, who is in a unique position to capitalise on that as an Australian in New York. “People come here from all over the world. It intrigued me when I arrived. I’ve been shooting twenty to thirty elopements a year. They’re mostly Australians who come over here to get married, so I really tap into that market.”
It has been an extremely difficult year for wedding and portrait photographers and, as Kirsten Cook noted, COVID presented an extra bundle of challenges on top of the challenges that the industry was already facing. Some of the wedding and portrait commissions that were postponed will be reinstated when COVID restrictions are fully lifted, but that is still only something that photographers can look forward to in the future, and there is still the ever-changing environment to conquer.
CONTACTS
Samm Blake
Jeremy Byrnes &
Katie Kolenberg
Kristen Cook
Dallas and Sabrina Kolotylo James Simmons
Kelly Tunney
www.sammblake.com
heartstoryphotography.com.au www.kristencook.com.au dallaskolotylo.com jamessimmonsphotography.com.au www.kellytunney.com.au
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