BECKLEY, WV (WOAY) – With events having been cancelled throughout the spring and the state finally opening back up, many people are rescheduling their events for the summer.
Samantha Rasnake, a local photographer and event host in Beckley, says the cancellation of events has seriously hindered her business.
“I know the financial crunch of being quarantined, I know a lot of people will rethink what they’re spending their money on,” Rasnake said.
As a photographer, Rasnake depends on events like graduations and weddings to fuel her business. And while graduations were cancelled, she still treated photography as her hobby and decided that even though she wasn’t getting customers, she would at least help out graduating seniors by offering free photo shoots for them.
“Seniors were missing out on a lot like graduation and prom. And I know a lot of effort goes into getting gowns and ordering the gown for the graduation.”
Rasnake is hoping that the coming months and the rescheduled events that come with them will bring her business back. And now that events are slowly starting to be rescheduled, she’s offering community members discounted photo shoots of weddings and any other event that had to be rescheduled during the pandemic.
“I wanted to give them an opportunity to at least get portraits of what they’re missing.”
Rasnake is offering free photo shoots to graduating seniors until the end of June.
