'I Knew I Had To Feed My Family': Coronavirus Forces Local Wedding Photographer To Make Career Change
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) – One wedding photographer's life isn't picture perfect due to the coronavirus crisis as she's lost tens of thousands of in revenue, but she's taking her entrepreneurial spirit and putting it to work.
Joy Ximinez is passionate about taking pictures and sharing peoples special moments
"We were just revving up for spring and summer when this hit," she said.
She has run her own business – A Moment of Joy Photography – for the last 20 years, but when she lost 12 bookings and $20,000 in just a matter of weeks, she had to turn the focus on herself.
"I just felt like my business that I had been growing all this time was starting to fall apart right in front of my eyes and I knew I had to feed my family," Joy Ximinez said.
So this week she started working for Instacart, posting a selfie of her shopping for others at an area Safeway. It's not what she planned and she said she is struggling to get by on half the income she once made.
"To do my new job, I have to have a car, insurance to pay my cell phone bill," Ximinez said.
She said some brides have postponed — but for how long?
"This might be just people postponing because venues are being closed," she said. "But these are people being affected by their own income like me and how are they going to pay for a wedding in sept when they haven't worked all summer?"
This photographer wonders if the stay at home order and the financial struggles it has caused is a snapshot of the new normal for those who are self-employed and still applying for assistance.
"Are you unemployed, employed, newly employed/how do you fill out that form...how do you answer that question?" she asked.