Thanks for the Offer, But I’ll Pass

How I am navigating pandemic and post-pandemic work.

Photo by JC Gellidon on Unsplash

This was written in response to the Medium Creators Write Here prompt during an Open Writing hour. This is in response to prompt number two for the week of March 14. Please follow other people’s responses here.

In March 2020, my department head at my community college told me to go home and stay home until further notice. My husband had a COVID-19 exposure at his office and not knowing how this potentially lethal virus worked, I disclosed this to my department head who had to move it up the bureaucracy chain. I was home for about a week when we got the notice that everyone at school should stay home.

So I started teaching from home. But I also had to figure out a way to pivot to keep my photo and video business alive. People are the center focus of my fields, but ultimately I felt my work wasn’t essential enough to put essential workers at risk. I sat out as much as I could before realizing Americans weren’t expected to wait out the pandemic, which means you still could be evicted if you don’t have a way to pay your rent.

I ignored initial photography trends such as porch sessions. While porch sessions worked for some photographers, it was off-brand for me. It also seemed to showcase some…