Bhavesh MalhotraWhat are photographers in Mumbai doing around Covid 19?
Photography as a field itself is very competitive and with Covid 19 and restrictions around it, surviving as a photographer has become relatively harder. With the ease in restrictions, we have made certain observations regarding how photographers are managing, let have a look.
Impact on Wedding photography
Before the pandemic, wedding photography was considered as one of the highest paying projects in photography, however, things have started to change post-Covid.
The number of people allowed during a wedding has been reduced so photographers have to cover projects in smaller groups.
Since there is a restriction on the number of people a photography company can manage to get on a shoot, the quality of output is getting impacted as well.
Clients are prioritizing prewedding shoots over wedding shoots
Live streaming of weddings on YouTube, Zoom, Facebook, etc, is becoming a thing.
Advertising and Social Media Marketing shoots
The pandemic has given birth to many entrepreneurs, people have started selling things independently on different platforms like the Facebook marketplace, Facebook groups, Instagram, Independent websites made on Wix, Shopify, Squarespace, and online stores like Amazon and Flipkart. People have even started their kitchen service and have started selling food on Swiggy and Zomato and all this has opened many doors for food and product photographers.
Model shoots are happening in studios and either client's warehouse or offices.
Products are either being sent over to the photographer's house or are happening at the client's office.
With Instagram being the main hub for advertising products, photographers who know styling or Stylist who knows photography are preferred.
Since these entrepreneurs are born out of a pandemic, most of them have started their business with funds collected from their full-time jobs and don't have a lot of money for investment and because of this very reason a lot of the new businessmen and women don't have good budgets for photography.
Food photography for Swiggy Zomato never paid enough and that is still the same. However, Restaurants and hotels that are looking to get photos for their digital marketing platforms pay well and are still happening with the added benefit of lesser crowd and more freedom infrastructurally to shoot at the venue.
Global opportunities
Because of the pandemic and work-from-home culture, Foreign companies are now outsourcing photographers and this has opened many opportunities. Companies from abroad don't only have good budgets and pay well but also have a good work culture. Not only Global but now companies based in different parts of the country are also more willing to send their products across states and cities for getting a photoshoot done. This impact is in the very early stages and we hope this opens up doors for many new ideas and collaborations.
Most of us have had to sit at home for a while and it's okay if you didn't get many Projects in fact it's also okay if you didn't get any project. It is a pandemic after all and we are still decades away from when an artist starts to get respect until then, Stay safe and keep grinding.
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