That is, if you want to keep your back intact so that after retirement you can still sit and watch the geraniums grow. I fear that I shall be lying in an orthopaedic bed of some sort.
This will be mainly due to my wanting to be ready for everything. Which I do – I insist that my customers should never hear me say “I did not bring X, Y or Z”.
And that means I need to bring everything. I mean everything:
So what do I pile into my SUV (yes, I need one)? Brace yourself.
- Camera
- Camera bag with lenses and speedlites and small accessories – my main, small, Domke bag.
- Camera bag with second camera (long lens) and more lenses, speedlites, etc.
- Laptop and laptop accessories bag.
- Bag with light accessories, pocketwizards, light meter, flash cables, etc.
- Bag with four light stands and umbrellas.
- Bag with backdrop (two stands, three-segment crossbar).
- Strobes (four monolights) and power cables.
- Overnight bag, just in case.
- Tripod and monopod.
- Paper rolls (grey and white) for the backdrop
- Muslin for the backdrop, for those “Sears portraits”.
- Reflectors.
The last four items aren’t even showing in the picture!
The main camera bag is the Domke described earlier, and the spare camera bag is this heavy-but-excellent Tamrac:
So why am I pointing all this out to you? For a few reasons.
- So that you know what a full kit consists of. That way if you really want “everything”, you now know what that means and you can start collecting (and saving). Go for it.
- To show that equipment does make a difference. People who say it doesn’t are part right, but in large part mistaken. Hence “go for it” – the more of this you have, the better for your creative opportunities.
- To show that you can pack an entire studio in a small SUV. It may be painful, but it can be done.
- So you can avoid hurting your back by choosing wisely. Clearly I do not need all this for every shoot. I recommend that you make a selection of stuff, a sort of checklist, for each occasion. Do this in advance. I have such checklists: for most common situations I know what to bring without having to dig through everything and re-inventing the wheel each time.
And yes, for some shoots, those where I am not sure what to expect, I do bring it all.
Now you know one more reason why you pay a professional photographer more than you would pay Uncle Harry or Uncle Fred. It’s all to fund his or her future orthopaedic bed.