End of the rainbow

I've never seen a rainbow appear as close as this, seen from a bedroom window this morning. So vivid too.
But on my mind was yesterdays shocking news that my former fellow photographers at Johnston Press are facing widespread compulsory redundancies, as the company thinks it's local papers can be filled with reader's pictures.
I left the company back in the Spring, sensing that cutbacks were coming, but I thought my colleagues jobs would be safer with me gone, for a year or so at least.
I'm trying to forge a new freelance career, but in the back of my mind has been the thought that I could still have been a staff photographer, that I had made a tough choice unnecessarily. Often derided, but it's a great life working on a good local paper, mixing the mundane with the famous, and for me and my photographer friends, working in the fine location of Scarborough.
Out of the blue, those same friends now face very uncertain times, and just weeks before Christmas too.
So this blip is for them, and all JP photogs too, to say there is life at the end of the rainbow, life goes on, to have hope for the future. Whether they manage to continue in photography or not, to remember that once a photographer, always a photographer. Those days of chasing pictures and deadlines will always be with you, the fun and the frustration.
To those who are kept on, you will be part of an increasingly rare breed of staff photographer. For those who will have to hand over their cameras, look forward to the new freedom you'll have, the people skills you have which will be so useful in another career.
And you can still always carry a camera, to keep shooting rainbows...