This blog post was planned for Friday/Saturday last week – to announce that I’m fully open and about to set up my first group shoot at the studio post lock down.  Then on Thursday night Greater Manchester and other areas in the North West was put into a new form of lockdown!  So that has put plans on hold… well, some of them.

After doing some research, and thinking through what Lockdown v2 is all about I’ve come to the conclusion that some things are still possible and others are not.  It appears that if a gathering is work related then it can still go ahead; if it is social it can’t.  In jest it has been summed up rather well on facebook as follows:

“You can only meet indoors in a place where there is a card reader”

Additionally, businesses have to be able to demonstrate that we are taking steps to mitigate the risks of COVID-19.

What does all this mean for Ian’s Studio?

Well, the way I am interpreting it is that if the shoot has a legitimate business element to it then it can go ahead, providing my COVID-19 practices are adhered to.  However if the event doesn’t have that then it can’t.

So what can happen?

  • Studio hires for commercial shoots can happen (subject to some restrictions), but studio hires for purely social/fun reasons can’t.
  • Paid portrait sessions can happen, and so can shoots to produce training content. (Again both subject to some restrictions) But shooting as a social activity can’t
  • Group shoots and workshops for multiple photographers will not be possible (because they always have a social element to them). However I am still able to deliver 1-to-1 training sessions.

Take a tour

So with all that in mind let me take you on a guided tour of the studio in it’s post-lockdown state.  One thing to keep in mind as you watch this video is was recorded before the latest restrictions were announced on Thursday.

In addition to the video, Terry McNamara has kindly produced a virtual tour of the studio in it’s new configuration.  You can find it here:

https://www.ians-studio.co.uk/photographers/studio-virtual-tour/

COVID-19 Notes & Policies

It’s a constantly evolving set of notes but if you want to see our COVID-19 Notes and Policies you can download a copy of the document here:

https://iansstudio.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/docs/COVIDPolicies.pdf