Packing for Tuesday's shoot. Streamlining the package.
I'm photographing a few people at an office in a downtown office building on Tuesday. I've worked for the company before. We're going to do the same style we did for them on the last job. Shooting portraits against a white background and then, later, compositing selected poses into scenes of urban backgrounds.
This is a quick project. The folks who need photographing are just in town for the day, have back to back meetings and will be off site in the afternoon. To complicate things the company is a start-up and they are working a WeWork office in a big bank tower.
I don't want to bring a cart and a big collection of gear because the parking garage attached to the building is far from the offices, the security people frown on carts and might require me to only use the freight elevators, but mostly I don't want to bring a cart for the gear because I just don't feel like it.
To make the project work, and still have time for swim practice before hand, I'm packing like I did in the days when I was working on the first Minimalist Lighting book. Everything needs to fit in a rolling case and one small stand bag.
I'm packing two Leica M240 cameras along with 75mm and 90mm lenses. I want to shoot full frame and I want to shoot in a format smaller than 47 megabytes but I've already pre-packed the two Leica SL cameras and the big zoom lens for a different client shoot happening the next day. I'm mid-project for that client and want to preserve the gear package for that day just the way it was for last week's shoot.
Along with the M cameras and the two lenses I'm packing a couple of Godox speed lights, a flash trigger and one Leica SF58 flash. I'll use the SF58 flash as a back-up trigger --- just in case.
No tripod, two light stands, one pop-up background stand, two 45 inch umbrellas and a 5 by 6.5 foot black on one side/white on one side pop-up background. That's pretty much it.
It's nice to have enough gear to pre-pack for several jobs and to pack for both of them over the weekend. I've got other stuff to do tomorrow and I don't want to waste a lot of time sorting and re-packing if I don't have to.
on a different subject: I'm getting better and better at turning down work. An agency out of New Jersey asked if I could videotape some short interviews for a law firm here. They'd like for someone to go on location, bring lights, several 4K cameras, and lavaliere microphones. They have 12 different interview modules they'd like done. And they want to have them edited afterwards. I almost choked on my coffee from laughing so hard when they told me their budget was, in total, $600.
That one was definitely a "no way in hell" proffer. That's what I would have charged just for the assistant. Not for a video shoot. And, of course, they seemed a bit shocked that I would "actually turn down paying work." Must be tough times in New Jersey....
It's moments like that which push me toward retirement.
