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Should you still be visiting and photographing clients?

by 9 Comments

There’s not really that much to say about this video from Ryan at Small Moments Studios (which does contain some pretty strong language in parts). It pretty much speaks for itself. He’s been stuck in his house now for 23 days and his business is on hiatus, Why? Well, there’s kind of a global pandemic going on.

His message to photographers is a simple one – Stay at home. Ryan talks about posts he’s been seeing daily in online groups, and I’ve seen plenty of them in the groups I’m in myself, photographers wondering if they should keep going out to shoot clients. Overwhelmingly, the responses are “Don’t be f**king stupid! Stay at home!”.

A third of the planet is currently on some form of lockdown, and photography is not an essential service (with the possible exception of photojournalists). If you’re still out there shooting clients, you’re putting not only their lives at risk but also your own, as well as those of your family and anybody else you come into contact with while you’re out.

You can be infected and asymptomatic for up to three weeks before having any clue that you have coronavirus, and all the while you can be infecting others. Those clients you go to shoot and engage with can also be asymptomatic carriers and transmit it to you, which you then pass along to your family members at home.

So, don’t be stupid. Stay at home.

If you do choose to act like it’s business as usual, despite being subject to a lockdown, and keep interacting with clients and you or your family get sick as a result or have to face the potential legal consequences of infecting a client (after all, you’re the only person they’ve had outside contact with in the last month), then don’t cry about it afterwards.

You have nobody to blame but yourself.

h/t Amoree

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About John Aldred

John Aldred is based in Scotland and photographs people in the wild and animals in the studio.

You can find out more about John on his website and follow his adventures on YouTube and Facebook.

  • He is so right !!

  • Richard Doktor

    You can be infected and asymptomatic for up to three weeks before having any clue that you have coronavirus, and all the while you can be infecting others.

    That is so only half the truth.
    What they don’t tell you is that if you are infected but have no symptoms, you can only endanger others by smear infection. Only when the disease actually breaks out is it possible for droplets of infection to reach others.
    But whoever has/shows symptoms has no business in public anyway and should be in a hospital. All others can protect themselves sufficiently with gloves.

    Corona may be annoying, but it is still no reason to give the fear complete space. A little bit more information and thinking along is already a very big protection.

    • Volker Bartheld

      You should immediately forward this interesting finding to Prof. Christian Drosten (one of the guys who found SARS, one of Germany’s best and smartest virologists and consultant to the German government)!

      He still believes that for almost all cases C-19 reproduces in the nose-throat area for some time and then migrates deeper towards the bronchial tubes and the lungs after which little to no virus concentrations can be detected by swabbing mouth and nose. In rare cases C-19 immediately starts off in the lungs, typically those who take a pretty violent course. And that C-19 has the interesting feature to be contagious for a few days already before symptoms emerge. Not smear infection (close to negligible in the cases seen) but the well known aerosol thing.

      From structured interviews done in Munich (one of the locations where the C-19 infection initiated in Germany) he also concluded that there are probably no “asymptomatic” cases whatsoever, only those that were accompanied with very moderate symptoms, such as headaches, general fatigue, slightly elevated body temperature and a sore throat that most of the patients did not even notice or ignored.

      I’m just citing Drosten’s podcast here, so don’t shoot the messenger. If you want to see for yourself, check out https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/info/Corona-Podcast-Alle-Folgen-in-der-Uebersicht,podcastcoronavirus134.html. The NDR (one of Germany’s biggest broadcasting companies) offers manuscript downloads as well if you don’t like or can’t understand a German narration. However, you would still need to use a translation service for the manuscripts, since there is no official English version I would know of.

      • Richard Doktor

        Apparently you are German, so you can probably understand my next information better. But I still write in English for everyone else.

        Maybe Mr. Drosten should then short-circuit with Mr. Haditsch (infection epidemiologist, specialist for infectiology and virology) in Hannover.
        Because that was exactly his statement, which I have quoted here. His statement was first heard (and seen) in the tv-programm “Talk im Hangar 7” on 2. April 2020.
        Link to the video is here -> https://www.servustv.com/videos/aa-22qz2qsss1w12/ at position 54:20 to 55:25.

        His statement sounds well-founded and logical and as the above mentioned expert I see no reason to doubt it. And it makes sense concerning ineffectiveness but dangerousness of face masks.

        • Volker Bartheld

          So, to cite Martin Haditsch, Facharzt für Infektiologie und Virologie (english speaking folks please use Google Translate or some other service):

          “[…] Herr Kollege Hutter, ich glaube, was wir schon mitbedenken müssen, ist, daß wir die Basiskriterien des Infektionsmodells nicht vergessen. Das SARS-Cov-2-Virus ist in zweierlei Art und Weise übertragbar. Durch Tröpfcheninfektion und durch Schmierinfektion. Durch die Tröpcheninfektion erfolgt die Übertragung sozusagen nur durch symptomatische Patienten, nämlich die, die husten, niesen, schnupfen, was auch immer. Alle anderen Leute, die durch SARS-Cov-2 infiziert sind können ausschließlich durch die Schmierinfektion den Erreger übertragen.

          Ja, es ist richtig, die Patienten sind auch zwei Tage vor Auftreten klinischer Symptome eventuell sozusagen eingehend kolonisiert, daß man das Virus bei ihnen nachweisen kann, aber die Weitergabe erfolgt laut Infektionsmodell ausschließlich bei diesen Leuten durch Schmierinfektion.

          Und wenn diese Leute konsequent die Händehygiene einhalten, dann brauchen sie keine Maske. Ich bleibe dabei, die Maske ist für Kranke, aber ansonsten bringt sie nichts. […]”

          This is then used as a proof that way excessive measures have been taken (in Austria, presumably). I find this statement a bit contradicting (e. g. you can detect viruses in the throat-nose tract days before any symptoms show up, but they can’t spread from there using aerosol droplets created while speaking or simple breathing as a vehicle but only by smear infection), but – as said – I am no expert.

          So I take the liberty to forward the transcript to the NDR Info podcast team. Perhaps there will be a comment by C. Drosten to clarify the contradiction. Until then, I prefer sticking to the recommendations given by the overwhelming majority of scientists that even if someone doesn’t look sick, he can still transfer SARS-CoV-2 and therefore it makes sense to keep some (more) distance in order to lower the infection risk.

          That ordinary face masks only protect your environment from your germs and not vice versa seems to be a commonly accepted fact. You would need at least a FP2/FP3 certified device to protect yourself.

          • Richard Doktor

            I don’t see any real contradictions there. If the viruses are in the ear, nose and throat track and the vector does not have any symptoms such as coughing or sneezing … then they cannot get away from there.
            Hence the statement that only the smear infection is relevant in this case.

            Maybe the tests should be done in the ENT tract first, if they can be detected there before the symptoms.

            Ad Masks: Of course, everyone knows by now that these simple masks are supposed to protect others. That is not the point.
            The point is that healthy and asymptomatic people may become possibly even more infected by using them, because the handling is more than just putting them on and taking them off again. And if the virus somehow gets on the mask, it becomes dangerous.
            Plus, there is a dangerous recommendation from governments that one should use such masks more than once. Which of course is absolute bullshit. If you use such a mask, you have to dispose of it immediately after one use. The best way is to dispose of it right after you come out of a shop or a public vehicle, for example.
            The idea of stretching the already limited resources of masks by multiple use can quickly become a nuisance.

            Furthermore, it has been preached long enough that you should only cough or sneeze into the crook of your arm (better: disposable handkerchief). Even the last fool should have understood this by now. If everyone practices it that way (as decency has been doing for centuries), then a mask is indeed not necessary.
            And the number of times someone accidentally and/or unintentionally sneezes/coughs in someone else’s face is hardly measurable in the masses.

          • Volker Bartheld

            “[…] If the viruses are in the ear, nose and throat tract and the vector does not have any symptoms such as coughing or sneezing … then they cannot get away from there. […]”

            You might want to watch this:
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLzMDvzWeV8
            , especially from 2:58.

            Second that if you don’t handle masks correctly, all sorts of things can happen. However “[…] there is a dangerous recommendation from governments that one should use such masks more than once. Which of course is absolute bullshit. […]” depends on the mask. I also doubt, that SARS-CoV-2 will survive temperatures above 80°C – if the mask itself can survive it (most cellulose fabrics, some cotton and rubber fabrics do as well), but that is taking the subject a little to far now IMHO.

            So whatever floats your boat. Stay safe.

  • David

    I photograph mostly Corporate Events, Business Head Shots, and Food. So, the only jobs that are still trickling in are food jobs for Grub Hub, Uber Eats, and Door Dash. I have discussed this with my wife and two daughters who are medical professionals. My argument is I have much more control over sanitizing of the surfaces in the restaurants (compared to going grocery shopping), and there are only 2-3 people working in them as there is no dine-in allowed in Boston. They now really plead with me to not go and shoot these jobs. With the peak surge in Boston expected within the next week or two, I don’t think I will be going out for these jobs. But boy do I miss doing photography :(

  • timothyf7

    Ryan is 100% correct!

    This is a “Non-Essential” profession during these times. I know it seems essential to the photographer and the associated bills, but it is the same for all of the other professions that have been shut down for safety.

    When I’m talking to friends and family on the phone and they make a comment like ” I’m going to see so-in-so because I know I don’t have it.”, (which, unless they have been tested they cannot possibly know this. And when they were tested also plays into it,). I ask them if by chance you are wrong and come in contact with said so-in-so and they catch it from you… are you willing to live the rest of your life knowing you sickened them or worse? I know it is tough. I haven’t seen my daughter and Grandson in several weeks. And it will be like this for several more. But MY answer to my question is “NO”! Unfortunately in the middle of the ever growing “Me Only” movement, this is not very common.

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