In March Jackie Herman, the photographer behind Simple Shots by Jackie, did a series of front step photo shoots of Yorkton families to help deal with the initial isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown.
An online search had come upon a photographer in the United States who was offering sessions for family portraits on front steps because with social distancing you couldn’t get too close she explained.
With time on her hands, and finding her photography a way to cope with the stresses society is facing at present, Herman borrowed the idea.
The quick five-minute session sessions were popular, so Herman is back offering a similar session for the holiday season.
Simple Shots with Santa to Fill the Food Bank is Herman’s latest effort.
The new initiative proved so popular once word hit social media Herman was doing it that the logistics of going home-to-home were recognized as unworkable.
“It was just going to be too many for me to do it the way I did it before,” said Herman, noting it gets dark so early at this time of year.
So Herman made arrangements and will be setting up the shoots, already booked solid, at the Agri-pavilion, which allows her to set up her lighting and extend the shooting day. As it stands she expects to be shooting from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. on the 13th, noting “you can’t say no to kids at Christmas” so the booking list just kept getting longer. So long in fact Herman added a second day, Dec. 20 to her plan.
As for a fee, that is where the food bank benefits as those booked for photos are asked to “go online and donate to the food bank,” said Herman.
The move indoors will mean some added rules for Herman to follow, including staying in her own zone as photographer, with Santa confined to his spot too. People will need to sign in in case contact tracing is required, and Herman has people on both the entrance and exit doors and a disinfecting crew in place.
“We’ll be following all the government protocols,” she said.
