BENGALURU: Rameshwar G was used to getting 30 enquiries a month. The founder of Journeys by Ram, a Bengaluru-based wedding photography and film company, has got a handful of inquiries in over five months. This year has been the lowest point in his business of seven years. Like him, many other wedding photographers and filmographers are not having a great wedding season this year. Though small-scale weddings are taking place, city-based lensmen are still struggling to make ends meet.
Rameshwar explains that for companies with bigger teams and full-time roles, the situation has been far more grim. “Some team owners have exhausted their savings and are now availing loans to keep the payroll running. Freelance professionals are going through some very dire times with no earnings at all,” he says, pointing towards a growing anxiety about the coming months. While weddings are taking place, the enthusiasm has diminished. “People now have just one or two events. Furthermore, since the usual jubilation that a typical Indian Wedding is known for is missing, it takes away the fun for a wedding photographer,” says Rameshwar. People have also brought down their budget for photography and videography.
Bhushan Bagadia, founder of Wedding with TLC, however, points out that a reduced guest list doesn’t lead to a decreased work load. “We still give the same number of pictures, whether it’s fewer people or more people. So the post production will take nothing less than 10-15 days,” says 37-year-old Bagadia. Some customers’ budgets have come down to as low as 50 per cent of the amount he used to charge. “Earlier I used to reject the offers but now I don’t because the financial crunch is bad,” he says.
Though they are taking up projects, photographers are concerned about the risk of being in crowded spaces, especially at a time when the number of Covid cases is going up drastically. Karthik K says, “I have taken a couple of projects but have rejected many just out of fear of infection. The word spreads faster than anything else. Once you are in a crowd where someone tests positive, you are blacklisted even if you test negative. The stigma that comes with it is irreversible.”