I am so excited to be photographing portraits on location tomorrow. Just a routine job but that's just what I'm in the mood for.

Packed for tomorrow. The stuff on the left of the rolling case is not going along 

with me. But it had to be considered. 

I always like the day before a photo project. I kick around the office watching stupid photo vlogs on YouTube and thinking about what I want to pack and how I'll shoot tomorrow's project. "Whomever the gods seek to destroy, first they make bored." I have been warned...

Having the time I have tested, packed, and repacked cameras three times. First I thought I'd use the Fuji GFX with that new 80-160mm Pentax 645 zoom I just got on the front of it. It's a lot to pack up but that's not what gave me pause. Nope. It was the realization that the camera doesn't feature smaller than full-sized raw files and the raw files it does create are pretty large. Even though I'm working for a huge, national accounting company all of the environmental portraits we'll be shooting in their new Austin offices are destined for life as Jpegs on the website. And I'm a promiscuous shooter. If ten frames are good then 50 frames are better. If 50 are better then 100 must be best. Multiple that by 10 or 15 portrait subjects and all of a sudden shooting raw with medium format seems almost overwhelming. And I'd hate to come home with another 20-30 Gigabytes worth of portrait variations.

Then there's also the bulk. My intention is to find 7 or 8 locations in the client's offices in which to shoot during the day. I figure I can get two different looks from each location if I just turn my camera to see a different part of the background for each of two subjects. That means moving lights and moving cameras around frequently for most of the day. To feel comfortable with the GFX+Pentax I'd also want the stability of the rail system I showed here a few days ago and that also adds weight and bulk. Uncomfortable for fast work. 

When I decided against using the giant medium format stuff to make small images for the web I went in the other direction and thought about using a couple of the M series Leica cameras and pressing the 75mm and 90mm lenses into service. But I knew I'd want to use an EVF to get good focus confirmation and that's a problem because the camera heats up after fifteen or twenty minutes of live view and the finders I have for them aren't that great anyway. The "deal-killer" is that I want to use electronic flash for this job as the offices have floor to ceiling windows on all sides. I want to be able to get close to daylight exposures for the backgrounds which means I have to deliver some flash power to the subjects to balance exposures on subjects and backgrounds. Using a flash trigger on the Ms means losing the EVF. Or risk becoming involved in an unwanted back and forth juggling of parts. That means, for this job, the Ms are out.

This morning I landed on the combination that's now packed and waiting to go in the morning (still time to change my mind at least once more....). 

The last time I worked for this client, doing the same sort of project but at a different location, I used a Sigma fp combined with the Leica 24-90mm zoom. I have a tripod mount for this lens which makes handling on a tripod a breeze. And the results I got last time were just right. I'd use the fp again but the need for flash puts it out of the runnning since, in the best of all possible worlds, the flash sync of 1/30th of a second is just not fast enough to handle the daylight outside. Sigh. 

The winner, at least in the moment, is the Leica SL. The ancient workhorse. Going on nine years old and still a great choice for me. I packed my favorite SL and my beater SL (always have a back-up camera) into a Think Tank rolling case along with the big 24/90mm zoom. I'm also packing along the Voigtlander 75mm M series lens (with M to L adapter) as a back-up for the zoom. Just in case. You never know. I've also packed way too many batteries for the SL out of sheer, recurring paranoia. Even though none of the images I'm making tomorrow are once in a life time treasures. I could arrange to come back and reshoot if everything did go to hell in a camera bag. 

The rolling case also has two of the Godox V1 flashes, some V1 accessories (barn doors, diffusion dome, color correction filters) and an extra lithium battery for each. The other additions to the Think Tank rolling case are three different Godox flash triggers. You know. Back up. It's all for naught if the flashes refuse to trigger.... (but yeah, I have a dedicated flash cable as well). 

There's a pop-up reflector in the mix and a stand with which to hold it. Two regular "nano" stands for the lights and a couple of umbrellas. My favorite 60 inch white umbrella with a black backing and a 45 inch in the same configuration as an all purpose addition to any scene. Toss in a Sirui tripod and that's the whole deal. No cart necessary. Lots of room in the trunk of the car. No weird security protocols that will require me to be escorted up the freight elevators. Even though it is a high security building. (Gotta remember to bring an I.D....). 

I've done this kind of job at least a thousand times. Probably a lot more than that. So why am I excited about it? Hmmm. I might just be bored by the slower rhythms of Summer. I might want the nostalgia of doing yet another shoot in the way we did them, pre-Covid. I might relish getting the entire photo of each person with an interesting background without having to depend on compositing in post production. Or maybe I'm just an extrovert who looks forward to being around new people. And some old friends (the firm has been a client for 12 years now....). 

The company, at least their Austin permutation, is a delight to work with. I get to guide my own creative and art direction throughout. I get to talk to interesting people mostly half my age. They always cater in lunches and every time I've photographed for them the lunches have been really, really nice. No fast food. Lots of choices. And whoever designed their offices did an amazingly nice job. My car sits in a high security parking garage attached to the building and out of the sun. What's not to like? It's almost like being on vacation. 

And I'm happy I feel this way about the project because it entails one shooting day tomorrow and one more shooting day on Wednesday of next week. With a day or two of post production after that (retouching, retouching...). But sandwiched in between those two days is a day for a different client, three blocks away, also in downtown. The CEO of that new company was, until recently, my next door neighbor and he's a hell of a fun and happy entrepreneur. 

For his start-up company we'll be photographing portraits in their offices against a white background. The selected images will be composited into images selected from a catalog I created for them late last year that's full of close, medium and far shots of urban landscapes. The final images are all done in black and white and this time I think I'll shoot their portraits that way as well. Black and white. Should be an interesting experiment. 

I have no more new gear coming, on order or in transit, so I'm cycling through the stuff I have here, on hand. Kind of fun. And interesting. And if I use a different system every time I go out the door to shoot it's more challenging (which is fun for me) and it requires me to keep charging batteries for all systems which should keep the batteries healthier. 

Why do I keep working? Because it's fun. I think the whole reason I eventually chose this career is that the actual process of doing the work is joyful and keeps my interest piqued. There is always something new to learn. You can only stomach so much retirement "pleasure."