Well, what a strange and difficult few months is has been, not only here in the UK, but across the world! We have all been forced to live our lives in a new way in order to look after each other and to try and prevent the unforgiving virus Covid-19 from spreading.
This, for me has meant the immediate temporary closure of my lovely photography studio, homeschooling my two children, keeping my family safe, looking after their mental wellbeing and trying not to go grey with worry about it all.
The first couple of weeks were a nightmare in our household, the children were loving the novelty of being home and trying to treat it like a holiday and we as parents had the juggling act of working from home and homeschooling. It all became incredibly overwhelming!
By the third week, we had started to settle into some sort of routine; school sent out workbooks to keep us on the right track, Joe Wicks was doing his best to keep us fit (dress up Friday was always an incentive for our youngest to join in) and the children had begun to understand the enormity of the situation and why we had to stay home.
Thankfully, our family hasn’t had to go through the pain that thousands of families of Covid-19 victims have gone through and are going through. Our thoughts are with them and all of the wonderful hard working ‘keyworkers’ in our hospitals and our communities.
Thanks to the beautiful weather (which seemed crazy, following the terrible floods only a few weeks before), we have tried to make the most of our family time together. The children have spent as much time out in the garden as possible, they are growing lettuce, potatoes, carrots and lots of tomatoes! Infact we ended up with about 120 tomato plants! (Most of our lovely neighbours happily adopted some of our tomato plants.)
Our once a day exercise was often a little family bike ride in the evening out to a farm where we were surrounded by fields and a beautiful view of the Malvern Hills. The bird song was incredible … without the sound of road, rail and air traffic, all we could hear was nature. This was our little escape from it all.
In our garden, we also enjoyed the new ‘quiet’, it was so relaxing but also rather strange.
I think that has been the unsettling thing about being in lockdown … even though we are in our safe space, our home, we are constantly worried and on guard the whole time, which is exhausting! I’m desperately missing being able to give my wonderful Mum a real hug, not just a virtual one.
It has been incredibly hard just simply putting my beloved Photography business ‘on hold’. Watching the weeks go by on the calendar with booking after booking either cancelled or re-arranged to an unknown date, feeling like I have let my clients’ down … It is of course a small price to pay for the safety and well-being of my family and my clients … but that doesn’t make it any easier to bear.
I have tried to stay positive and use any bits of time I had (mostly evenings) to do online training courses to keep up to date with the latest photography techniques and improve my business skills.
I also spent a lovely few days at the studio creating my very own ‘Fine Art’ canvas backdrop. It was amazing to work on such a large canvas, also very therapeutic and I was really pleased with the result. Click here to watch a little video of it’s creation. The following weekend, my daughter agreed to a photoshoot and the images I took of her against my backdrop are stunning. I can’t wait to start up my Fine Art Child Portrait sessions again.
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I have since been planning a deep cleaning routine and changing things around in the studio to make it as ‘covid safe’ as possible, so that when I re-open to clients they will be happy in the knowledge that their safety is my top priority.
It is going to be some time before we get back to the ‘normal’ that we once knew. The way I photograph many of my sessions will change slightly, but I will still be able to produce wonderful artwork for you and your family to treasure forever.
Stay safe
Emma x
