Every professional photographer knows the importance of backup gear. At least two cameras, two flashes, two lenses, etc. And I submit that most professionals have way more gear than that. However, the other night as we were preparing for a Wedding a thought came to me.
Let’s set a scenario right quick: It’s Friday night, 5PM. You’re getting your equipment together for tomorrow’s Wedding in which you need to arrive at 9AM. You’ve cleaned your lenses, formatted your CF cards, verified time and location, and are working on charging batteries. You take the batteries out of your cameras and insert one of them into its charger….. and nothing happens. You chuckle to yourself as you remember you need to turn on the power-strip that the charger is connected to… except.. it’s already on. Perplexed, you switch batteries on the charger with no avail. You come to the realization that your battery charger is no longer working. You do have a back-up, right?
Now.. if you’ve purchased two similar cameras at retail, then you most likely have two identical chargers… regardless of the brand. I chose not to sell my extra chargers because it made my task of charging all the batteries that much simpler. But as I was looking at the charging table we have set up at the studio – I thought about how problematic it could be to not be able to charge batteries the night before a wedding or big event.
Fortunately, many cameras that accept battery grips have AA battery attachments that can be used to power the cameras. But, that assumes that you know where that attachment is. However, full body professional cameras rely on their brand specific batteries for power with no other (easy) alternatives.
I’ve attached an iPhone photo of my charging station that I’ve temporarily made for our studio. Since we’re still settling in after a big move – this will be a little more permanent as soon as I find the appropriate place for it. Until then – you can see the redundancy we have in battery charging, which allows us to recover from a problem should one ever occur.
One final note, we keep our chargers unplugged when not in use. This saves on the minuscule bits of power they use when not actively charging – and also helps to prevent any stray power surges from wiping out our entire collection of chargers.
It may not seem important at first and I’m sure it doesn’t happen often – but small bits of preventative action can save you loads of stress down the road.
Atlanta Wedding Photographer, Matthew Lovell
Are you folks familiar with Garry Winogrand? If so, then great – this will make perfect sense. If not, click on the link at the end to a short story written by a gentleman who took a workshop with Garry. So, how does vague and seemingly unconnected start have anything to do with Wedding Photography? Good question…
While I was sitting in a workshop with a mentor of mine, Don Giannatti from Phoenix, AZ, he was telling us a story about a photographer named Garry Winogrand. What set Garry apart (among other things once you read some biographies) was that he never looked at images right away. Most of the time, he waited a year, sometimes two, before processing the film. His thought was that he should have no recollection of taking the image because it would cloud his vision on whether or not it was a “good” photograph.
Of course, there were always exceptions. So, it was noted that if Garry felt particularly excited about a photograph – or just wanted to see it right away – he would develop it immediately. However, as I understand it, the norm was that the film sat in their canisters for quite some time before ever being developed.
So, as a Wedding Photographer – you certainly cannot allow your images to sit there for a year before you look at them. You wouldn’t have any clients. But, what you can do is go back after that year and look through the wedding to see if anything jumps out at you. I discovered this by accident.
We are working on creating a few new sample albums for our studio – and one in particular was from a Wedding in June 2009. We had, for some reason, never made a sample album from it. We had a few favorites from that wedding that we had used in marketing and such, but I realized that I was looking at the images in an entirely different way because it had been a year since I had seen them.
What I realized was that as my tastes changed, and I had another year of education, photography, and experience behind me – I was able to see things in the photos that I hadn’t seen before. So, I encourage you to go back through your weddings – with a more experienced eye than you had before. Find some new photos – you can potentially enhance your portfolio without having to do too much work.
Stay tuned to the Pro Photo Business Forum – next week I’ll be posting a workflow article on keeping track of your favorite images that way they’re easily at hand for promotional purposes.
Thanks everyone for reading – below are some links referenced in the article.
A story about Garry Winogrand
Lighting Essentials by Don Giannatti
Atlanta Wedding Photographer, Matthew Lovell
Do you find yourself overwhelmed with ideas and thoughts about how to market, promote, organize, run, or otherwise manage your business? Have you struggled to find a way to keep track of your thoughts or creative ideas because you forget about them? If so, you may be a lot like me, and I’d like to share how I handle my overactive stream of consciousness thinking.
Several years ago, I was walking through an office store and I noticed that whiteboards were on sale. At the time, I was a full-time student and saw the value of having my own whiteboard to work on while during homework and such.
So, fast forward a few years. We move into our new studio last year and in December I decided to bring out the ‘ol whiteboard. I cannot say enough about how much that little action of hanging a whiteboard has provided for us.
Here’s how I work it:
So, I’ll be sitting in my office working on something when I get an idea. Or, let’s say I’ve got something business related troubling me. Or, I’m looking for a new idea for this years bridal shows. I start by writing the subject of the exploration at the top of the whiteboard: whether it be a topic, or a question. I then proceed to dump everything in my head onto that board. I pace. I talk to myself. I write stuff on the board. I have a 36″ x 48″ whiteboard to fill… so what do I do when it fills? Well, I take a picture of it.
One important note on the way my system works: I never erase anything from the whiteboard until its been photographed. Including ideas that have been discounted. I’ll indicate with an “x” or a strikethrough that its not a good idea. But, when I go back to review what we have discussed I want to be able to see the good ideas & the bad ones. I have a visual memory of our discussion.
On my computer, I have a folder labeled “whiteboard” where I keep the pictures of our whiteboard sessions organized by date and subject. I have pulled them up and reviewed them several times, whenever a topic or discussion was rehashed. Or, if I needed to simply reference something we had explored.
In the photograph I’ve included, the topic was: “What to we have & how are we using it?” In other words, I wanted to explore how we were promoting our business, where we could do better, and what was missing. You can see that it is very stream of consciousness writing. I scribble as I think. Some of the things we use regularly, some we deemed to be ineffective.
All in all, the best thing about having a whiteboard is being able to explore concepts and new ideas from beginning to end and having a way to document them. I call it “Whiteboard Marketing” because some of our greatest and most successful marketing ideas have been products of whiteboard thought sessions. It has saved us thousands in costly marketing errors and created thousands in the ability to see an idea all the way through. I would encourage everyone to go forth and scribble!
Atlanta Wedding Photographer, Matthew Lovell
