Michael KellyOne of our most prolific photographers has given us his take on the extraordinary times we are living through…
As I write one of my customers is cancelling another job … (more opportunity to shoot something else).
The big issue with big companies is they take a massive amount of effort for momentum to build; then once moving there is zero potential to change direction, so they slam the brakes on and stop it all and that is what is happening. We’re all on the same interstate travelling at the same speed and up ahead someone just hit the brake pedal hard.
The positive side to this is the Interstate is still there: totally intact on the other side of this problem.
It is crucial that photographers and story tellers see opportunity and look beyond the pictures of empty shelves and frustrated shoppers: that is now: look to the future. The blank Canvas which is The World is being given a good clean right now and there is no one out there to mess it all up so use the isolation the travelling photographer exists within and shoot pictures. Use what is on your doorstep and be a specialist in your area: just approach it from the turn you never took and something will happen to get you started.
I live on Dartmoor in the UK most of the time when not travelling. I don’t take pictures here. This is the perfect example of total lack of imagination on my part: I see it every day and it becomes ‘normal’ but its not. Its outstanding. So my plan is to look at it in a new way. (I will buy a DJI Mavic Pro 2 and have a go: I’ve never seen it from up there).
I’ve been completely broke so many times in this job I lost count trying to make all of this work. Reinvention is key. Just keep going out there and taking pictures. The experience outweighs the reward in most cases.
Neil Emmerson