It's cancelled.
I had been gearing up for the first photoshoot of 2020. It was supposed to happen next week, but now it's been cancelled due to the novel coronavirus outbreak.
Social distancing is one of the ways we are protecting ourselves from passing the virus from person to person, but also not hanging out in crowds where one's chances of contracting the virus are raised.
From London's point of view, the public transport, especially London Underground, is the perfect setting for the virus to really spread. So in order to avoid that, we have mutually decided to cancel the shoot.
WHAT NOW?
Well, we have a drastic change of plans don't we. I had a business plan relating to photographing people for their social media accounts and blogs, but that's now moved back. Hopefully by end of Summer, I might be able to start it up again. Or maybe not.
At least mine was still in the planning/booking stage. I have a friend who runs an Air B&B business who's now wondering how they're going to cope this year. Already, a wave of cancelations have come in of international bookings.
Another friend of mine runs a camping site. It used to be a farm, but it got converted into a camping site years ago as the family business. I haven't spoken to him about it yet, but I can imagine he's got cancellations too. He's in Kent, so many of his clients came from France and Belgium apparently. In theory, people from the UK should still be fine to go camping - all one has to do is drive down there. If anything, it'll be much safer than being in a city.
Another peculiar problem is that my friend is suffering from the #toiletPaperAppocalypse, as such is running critically low. He may need to add a "bring your own toilet paper" to his listing :)
As for me, I'm not sure what alternatives I have in terms of photographing people. I'd just have to wait this whole thing out I guess.
Peace and Love,
Adé
