COVID-19: How’s the agency doing? SWNS

Here at PAN we are in communication all week long with photo agency owners, both stock and editorial, discussing how their business is under COVID-19.

This from Jon Mills Picture Editor at news agency SWNS in the UK.

Hey Will, nice to hear from you.

Our office staff have been working from home for three weeks, the technology is so good now that the transition was really smooth.

Despite the upheaval we’ve maintained our daily output of around 100 stories and actually increased the volume of videos we offer.
We’re assessing every photoshoot to balance the need to document this extraordinary situation with the need to keep our photographers and their subjects safe. To highlight this Jon sent us the photo shoot above and told PAN: ‘here’s an interesting coronavirus shoot (above) we did on a virtual graduation ceremony. 220 medical students graduated early to join the fight against COVID19 – the ceremony was on Zoom. Our photographer Tom Wren did the shoot whilst maintaining a four metre distance to everyone, not going inside and not touching anything!’

In some ways we’ve enjoyed the creative challenge of coming up with ideas for coverage without travelling or getting close to other people – this feature was especially fun – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-52120114
Also we have a strong citizen journalism offering which has been essential to tell this story.
On a personal level I’ve been incredibly proud of everyone on my team but we all know who the real heroes are #NHSThankYou.

Cheers
Jon

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