Tougher than life
Ask a photographer, “What is the toughest time you’ve experienced in your career?”, and the answer will probably be, “the coronavirus.” And according to Perth-based animal photographer Alex Cearns, “The impact of COVID-19 is definitely one of the toughest times I’ve experienced in my career”. The Los Angeles-based portrait, advertising, and celebrity photographer Art Streiber agrees: “This is, by far, the toughest time I’ve experienced in my career,” he says.
Likewise, American advertising and commercial specialist Tim Tadder has also felt the full brunt of the last few months. “The global spread of COVID-19 severely hampered the creative industry. Through this high-level of uncertainty, anxiety, and stress, I wasn’t able to fully utilise my creative mind as I’d done for the past fifteen years,” he states. “I truly live and breathe on the mindset of collaboration and connection in the creative industry. It’s what I’ve built my career on. I thrive on the energy of the sets, working in close contact with others, and I didn’t have that connection for almost three months.”
The advertising industry has been hit particularly hard, and the holding companies of the seven largest advertising agencies had eliminated 49,695 global positions by 1 June as advertising work withered. “The level of uncertainty during this time bred sleepless nights and anxiety about a multitude of things, especially expenses. I was essentially bleeding money with the hopes that it was all going to turn around soon, which was tremendously scary,” Tadder recalls. Expenses exceeded his resources, and he didn’t know when he would be able to work again.
The harshest moment
The pandemic came on suddenly and affected everyone in
