The Viewfinder

Creative Communities like ours are needed now more than ever

17 Mar 2022 1:39 PM | Duane Blocker, CPP (Administrator)

By Jordan Scheiner


Its march 14, 2022 and in sitting down to write this article for the Viewfinder I realized it is almost two years to the day of the first covid lockdown. I remember that weekend we shut down vividly. I had two giant parties to photograph that got in right under the wire before the city shutdown. No one was wearing masks yet and no one was really freaking out as we didn’t really know much yet…kind of the calm before the storm.

As a photographer who makes a good part of their living from giant fun parties I hadn’t really thought about what was coming as I have always been a pretty go with the flow dude. So, like most of us, I wasn’t really ready to watch my business come to a screeching halt over night.

My clients were upset over their lost events, but also really great as we were able to reschedule most of the weddings and Bar Mitzvahs for 6 months later…and then a year later. It was nice to know that I had so many events ready to go in 2021, but now what about 2020?

After going through the five stages of grief over my business: denial(its all good, covid is just a cold!), anger(this sucks!), bargaining(of course you will be able to have your wedding by May 5th, I mean June 1st, no, September 1st for sure!), depression(drinking) we finally came around to…Acceptance(yay!).

I won’t lie, it took a while to get there. And that’s when I started talking to some of my other friends in the creative industries and saw that we were all in the same boat. Photographers, caterers, Dj’s, event planners, musicians, fine artists, we were all stuck in covid limbo.

So, at this point you are wondering what this rant has to do with anything. It’s about community. I realized within these artistic industries we all move through, there is a great community of creatives of all kinds that we work with and may not know as well as we would like. My friends and I started getting together(outside, staying 10 feet apart, of course!) And once we got through the initial “my business is in the toilet” conversation we all got to know each other better and even started working together to figure some of this crazy covid stuff out. We started working on ideas for the future, fundraisers for those covid affected more than us and even started new businesses together.

This idea of a community of creative people is the reason I joined PPGH in the first place and what makes it important. And what I have found in the last few years as I have gotten more involved in the guild(thanks Laura!) is that our photographers genuinely want to help each other grow and get better in their craft and business.

So in a final rant. Now that we see the light at the end of the tunnel with this covid insanity we have all been living in, let’s remember how important our photography community is by coming to meetings and workshops and learning from our peers. Let’s welcome the new photographers and help them take their business and craft to the next level, while also welcoming back those members we haven’t seen in a while, and most of all let's keep being a community. 

Recent posts

  • There are no blog posts to display.


Copyright © 1950-2023 Professional Photographers Guild of Houston. All Rights Reserved.
Powered by Wild Apricot Membership Software