Activity

Taking photographs of people on locations during COVID-19 pandemic, in light of increased risk of virus infection.

Hazards

Transmission of the virus in:

• Person to person contact.
• Person to object/material contact.
• Airborne particles 

Who might be harmed and how?

Member(s) of the public, the client or other wedding suppliers/contractors could be at risk of contracting COVID-19, putting them at serious risk of illness.

The photographer and/or assistant photographer is also at risk of contracting COVID-19, being exposed in an environment out of their control.

What measures are in place to reduce the risk?

Philip Bedford Photography has referred closely to government guidance including but not exhaustively:

• Working safely during coronavirus (COVID-19)
• Managing risks and risk assessment at work
• Current guidance on Weddings

We will follow the venue/premises’s Covid 19 risk assessment and guidelines throughout the shoot. 

We always maintain a high level of personal hygiene:

• Always washing hands frequently following government guidelines, including arrival and departure.
• Hand sanitiser is used where washing hands is not possible/practical – especially when touching surfaces/objects that are at high risk of transmitting virus particles (i.e. wedding rings)
• Maintaining a safe distance from guests wherever practical, we will adhere to a minimum of 1 metre of social distancing wherever possible.
• Posing of groups of people must be outside, or adhere to current government guidelines around social distancing and ‘bubbles’. – it is our clients’ responsibility to advise on who is able to take part in group photos and who is bubbled with who.
• Use of a face mask when in enclosed spaces to help protect you and your guests.
• Photographer will stop work, alert site/venue staff, leave the site/venue and self-isolate immediately if any symptoms appear
• Adhere to the site health & safety policy

We clean all equipment before and after a shoot of areas that are receiving high traffic usage or are frequent contact surfaces (such as a camera body, light stands, etc).

We always avoid wearing jewellery, watch, or handling cash.

Our staff have had vaccinations where possible (Philip has had one jab in May 2021 and another scheduled for 30th July 2021).

What further action is needed to reduce the risk? 

Please note that although we have safeguards in place to minimise the risk of a client contracting COVID-19, it is not possible to eradicate the risk completely. 

Therefore the client takes responsibility for their own personal health and safety and must make a personal risk assessment in order to identify whether they deem the residual risk too high.

In this risk assessment, clients should take into account their own individual vulnerabilities, including whether they’re within one of the “at risk” categories as identified in government guidance.