Six

Every year I celebrate another year in business - how has six years flown by quite so quickly?! This year is a 'little' different!

I've been closed since early March and now I'm beginning to work out what is feasible as a photographer working during the pandemic. One thing that has been positive about stopping for this long period is the consolidation of my identity - I am a photographer through and through and getting back to regular photography in the future, is something that I am sure of, even if my kit is on holiday currently!

Normally I do a review of the year, but pre covid just feels so far away that I thought I would share a little about my lockdown.

Shortly before lockdown, I won an award!

I had my last few shoots, a gallery with some wonderful young artists and recorded a family shoot capturing me working on video which will be shared soon and more, without an understanding of what was come.

In the early days of lockdown I found myself shocked about closing the business and slowly taking time in the garden to gently weed, listen to the birds and watch spring as it developed. I even moved the furniture around in the house to give me a garden view over the lockdown hours, it's amazing how much more wildlife you spot when you are looking out the window over the day. Life was very still, quiet and a little scary for a while.

Then came an adjustment and acceptance that life was/is and is going to continue to be different for a while.

One of the huge positives about the lockdown period has been getting involved with the wonderful West Chesterton Mutual Aid group - I joined a coordinating group of people who have never met who had set up a fabulous system to support a massive pool of people willing to do all sorts of things to help their neighbours. As part of this I even dabbled in film making; remotely arranging footage and editing a promo video for the group!

One of my sadnesses was missing out on seeing my family - my parents moved from Cornwall to Norfolk in July last year to be closer to us and have now spent a significant part of their first year in lockdown. Daily FaceTime chats with my mum have been really special - to have that time over lockdown to actually spend with them fully present if not in person has been really good. I really don't feel like it's March since I last saw them! Going from weekly if not more frequent visits to my niece to only FaceTime catchups was quite a change too - Hide and seek with my niece is the best and she's been a real bright ray of sunshine over lockdown - who can fail to smile when a 2 year old is doing her best to make you laugh and just enjoying the moment!

I am also incredibly mindful and grateful for having navigated through lockdown so far in a relatively healthy, happy way and am really conscious that I have had the luxury of FaceTimes/home based lockdown with my partner rather than working on the frontline as a key worker. This period makes me want to hold onto the happy that little bit harder and I hope in time to be able to capture so many moments of joy with my clients too.

I'm slowly starting the process of reopening and more on this will be published soon. But I can cautiously say that this year has been a big business hiccup but also strangely consolidating - a reaffirmation that my job is very much part of who I am and what I love, and I can only see more wonderful experiences, beautiful things and precious moments captured as we move out of lockdown this year and into 2021!