Atlanta Wedding Photographers, Climie + Co News

So I’m buried in production and shoots and all manner of things and have not really had time to assemble any blog entries about the most recent trip to Nigeria to cover Nina and Efiom’s Igba Nkwu ceremony and their “white” wedding.  I’m really looking forward to dropping some hot images on this thing.  It’ll happen soon enough.

The photo above pretty much sums up what it’s like for a power hungry American to try to get by in a country that basically runs without power.  So much of the stuff we need to get the job done assumes a stable, on-demand power supply.  Well, after two trips to Nigeria, from Lagos to Owerri to Arondizuogu to Nri to Enugu to Abuja to Calabar to Dikenafai, I can tell you that if you plan on working there, you’d better assume you’ll never have power and bring enough to get by without it.  And when the power or generator is on, you drop everything and jump all over it.  

This last trip was for three weeks.  So what did I bring to assure I got by being able to shoot and keep images safely?  Like many international destinations, good luck finding something if you are in a pinch and lost or forgot something.  Camera batteries have long since stopped being a problem in how many shots you can take per charge, so five batteries for two cameras would have safely taken me through the entire trip if need be.  The most important thing was to bring enough cards to never even have to think about having to erase and shoot over them.  In this case, I took a little over 200GB of cards.  I also take a Jobo GigaVu on these trips so I can easily download cards and view images without having to fire up the laptop.  This is great because it also acts as an external drive so I can work on images directly on it, or I can drag files to the laptop.  When the power or gen is on (usually only for a few hours at a time), I’d get as caught up as possible in downloading shot cards to as many devices as possible.  As I get further in the trip, my focus will change from safeguarding equipment to safeguarding images.  Before everything is shot, equipment is paramount.  After everything is shot, all I care about are those files.

As far as camera gear, I travel both as light and as redundant as possible.  Generally this will mean 2-3 bodies, about 6 small/light primes ranging from 18mm to 85mm.  If I lose/drop a prime, I still have a few others that would be in the range that would be gone if I brought, say, one 17-35 zoom.  I will bring two Speedlights, a couple of TTL cords and lots of AA batts.  The rest is ancillary and non-critical, like Pocket Wizards, etc, etc.  If it doesn’t fit in a ThinkTank Airport International roller comfortably, I don’t take it.  Take too much stuff, and you’re constantly worrying about corralling and tracking gear.  Take too little, and you put yourself at risk of one equipment failure knocking you down for the count. 

Flying all over to these kinds of places looks like a vacation to the outsider, but it comes bundled with a whole lotta constant worrying, logistical nightmares, run-ins with “officials” wanting to know why you’re traveling with so much equipment and are you a “photojournalist” and “where’s your ID?”, and so on.  Once you take on the job, you cross a line which makes the trip all the more difficult, but in the right situation, still very much worth the trouble.

Posted on January 30th, 2009 by Climie
Filed under: Big News You Can Use, Destination: Nigeria