Here I am sitting down with a blank piece of paper and a pencil in my hand trying to jot down what this year has been for us.
Emotionally speaking, I wish this blank piece of paper would be magically auto-filled with the greatest achievements and the happiest events that we can call a successful year-without-any-curveballs looking back at it.
The year looked like a complete disaster when we were hit with the lockdown news in late March. We believe that the wedding industry has its foundation in hospitality and this is no exception for us, the wedding photographers, as we are probably the most interactive vendor on the wedding day itself attending to many people’s intimate moments very closely all day long. Any physical human interactions that deemed COVID-unsafe were tabooed as soon as the outbreak of the virus hit the world and we were deeply affected by this. This was particularly difficult for us because what we love and do is fundamentally based on interacting with others face to face.
We were astounded and reminded once again of how vulnerable and unpredictable our lives are and that we should never take each breath of the clean and fresh air for granted. Literally.
After 5 months of a long hibernation from wedding work (during which we had done a couple of 5 and 10 person weddings and given the privilege to be the two witnesses for Vivien and Shaun), we finally saw the light at the end of the dark tunnel.
Oh man, the joy!
To be completely truthful, no. Not really. We were really nervous about it as we knew that we were about to head into the busiest few months with all the postponed weddings and new jobs combined with the uncertainty in any near future. As soon as we stepped into the first wedding back, we felt at home and we were just so happy for our couples who had gone through the most unusual wedding planning ever. The anticipation has really made us appreciate the opportunity for the loved ones to gather once again celebrating such a special day together but also we felt sad that some physically couldn’t make it due to the border closures.
Such restrictions and the new way of life this year have pushed us all to adjust to the new norms, whether we like it or not.
We really do hope and pray that 2021 will bring us a better outlook on the coronavirus situations around the globe but all we can do now is to live every day in thankfulness and work hard towards loving others on a day-to-day basis as you never know what the future might hold.
One regret that we have is that we have not been taking enough photos of ourselves or each other this year and as photographers at heart, we feel a little ashamed. I guess we were emotionally deflated for a bit and it took a while before finally getting back on the feet to put all of our energy into rejuvenating the business. We realised that accepting and learning from the ‘downs’ of life is also as much important as celebrating the ‘ups’.
To be honest, we are really excited for the new year and look forward to working with all of our lovely couples who have put their trust in us to capture one of the happiest days of their lives. The 1st of January of 2021 will be just another day for us, doing what we love doing and making memories into photographs that last.
Thank you 2020 and all those who have supported us through this challenging year and we’d like to tribute some of our favourite images of 2020 here.
We’ll catch you on the flip side.
Love,
Kevin and Heena