Page 19 - Capture Nov 21-Jan 22

a look back at 2021 wedding & portrait
Wedding
& Portrait
The Year in Review
A changed market
As COVID restrictions rained down, there was a flow of smaller weddings and elopements, while larger weddings ebbed. “The restriction on the number of guests is changing all the time; couples are scared of hiring big teams for their weddings,” says Aries Tao. Based in Sydney, Tao is the executive photographer and creative director at Clover Image where the team specialises in fine art wedding photography. Byron Bay wedding photographer Van Middleton elaborates. “The main change for us as photographers is having to change to smaller scale events, without some of the big crowds that can add colour and energy to wedding collections,” he says.
Middleton adds that instead of a predictable and booked calendar of weddings, photographers are now facing huge gaps with no weddings only to have a rush of last-minute bookings. Adapting to this is more challenging for solo operators, but studios with multiple photographers can more easily manage a situation where they are suddenly faced with the prospect being double-booked.
Based in Melbourne, wedding photographer Jerome Cole had a full season booked, set to start in July. “I was so pumped; it was going to be amazing. I had my final meetings with couples checking the details and then...bang! Lockdowns began again”. Even when restrictions eased after each lockdown there was a delay in weddings going back to normal as dancing was not permitted. Towards the second part of 2020 he found couples were postponing more frequently, but now after several lockdowns couples are deciding to go ahead even if they can’t have the exact wedding they envisaged. “There's been a shift in mindset, where people decide they’re not going to postpone a second, third, or even fifth time,” Cole says.
The portrait industry wasn’t immune to the impact of COVID restrictions either. “There were times, especially in the beginning of the pandemic, when I felt overwhelmed with worry,” says Elizabeth Messina, who’s based in Southern California. “Virtually all of my jobs were cancelled or postponed. The uncertainty was visceral.” Since gatherings in larger groups was no longer an option and travelling for destination shoots wasn’t either, Messina did more intimate portraits of one or two people, often in her studio. “I had a big destination job that was postponed twice. Eventually my clients came to my home and we spent the day together making beautiful images,” she says.
The impact of COVID and lockdowns on the wedding and portrait industry has been significant, and the challenges they’ve brought have been immense, but not insurmountable. Photographers were forced to find new ways to express themselves creatively and look at innovative ways to remain viable. How have photographers prospered and what have they learnt? Sophia Hawkes reports.
Melbourne-based portrait photographers Rowena Meadows also found that lockdowns played havoc with her business. “I think the repeated lockdowns and cancellations of events, holidays, and plans in general led to a lot of people stopping making plans all together. Even when we were out of lockdown and allowed to work in people’s homes, it was much harder to book clients because of that underlying desire to avoid the disappointment of more cancelled plans. That’s been the hardest,” she says.
Keeping a wide scope
Roger Tan has an established a studio in Sabah, Malaysia, and specialises
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