Team Loxley have loved seeing the community’s lockdown stories, keep sending them in! We want to see how you have adapted during these exceptional circumstances. One photographer who recently featured on our Lockdown Stories blog was Lancashire-based wedding photographer Si Miller. Obviously, due to the Coronavirus outbreak and subsequent lockdown, Si’s usual work stopped when the weddings stopped.
Fundraising with photography
Si picked up his camera during the lockdown to document a huge moment for his wife’s friend Donna. Donna, a teaching assistant at a school for children with special educational needs, decided to do the ‘Brave the Shave’ challenge for Rosemere Cancer Foundation. Si had the idea to use his skills to help her raise money:
“I immediately asked if I could document it and thought I could start asking for donations towards her fundraiser. She has raised an amazing amount – over £2,500. The feedback has been great, a few local news outlets have done stories on it and the response on Facebook has been amazing. She’s a very brave lady.”
Keeping busy during lockdown
As a wedding photographer, all of Si’s usual work stopped when the lockdown was announced. Unfortunately, weddings have only just been allowed to resume and with much smaller numbers of guests and with social distancing in place. Si’s 2020 has been very different from what he anticipated:
“All of my weddings bar one has been postponed or cancelled till September. I have one still planning on going ahead in August, if government guidelines allow. The couple know it’s going to be very different to what they had planned, it may just be a small wedding ceremony with a few guests.”
He understands that this is totally new territory for everyone, so Si has started expanding his work outwith weddings:
“Instead of photographing and editing weddings, I started doing a few doorstep shoots just to keep busy and to document families around my local area. I have been working with my couples to rearrange their wedding dates. Most have moved to next year.”
Because most of his weddings this year have sadly been postponed until 2021, Si has been taking this down time to improve his skills. Now is the perfect time to improve your website, boost your social media presence and become better known in your local area. He would recommend other photographers get out there and keep photographing, so you are ready once the lockdown is fully lifted:
“I’ve been doing a lot of work on my website and online learning. I would say to get out with your camera and photograph something, create a little mini project. I take loads of photos of my kids, but I felt the doorstep shoots just gave me that interaction with clients that can get a bit rusty.”