I agreed to shoot a wedding. I didn't think preparing to shoot one would be so intensive, but I spent lots of time looking at wedding photography sites and deciding just what to rent. (The sites didn't help me decide what to rent. It was just an on-going battle in my head while I looked at too many wedding pictures.) I ended up renting the following: a car, a Canon 40D, an extra battery for said 40D, a fast telephoto lens, a portable light kit, two strobe heads, two umbrellas. I think that was everything. I decided not to get a laptop, not to clean my camera again, not to get insurance (though, I still need to do that)... There were two ways to approach the wedding. After I ordered my rentals, I wasn't sure I had gone the right route--the more portrait-oriented route.
The couple didn't want the new trend of photojournalism. They didn't fancy themselves the center of new reality show. They wanted group photos. Lots of them. Okay... Good thing I did that stint at Tavern on the Green and rented lights. Posed shots should be better for my portfolio than documentary photos (even if they would wreak havoc on my budget and make travel impossible).
Friday I picked up the rental equipment. Testing the lights didn't concern me as much as getting to know my back-up camera (the 40D). And being sure the camera and telephoto lens had been smart choices for low-light settings. The two pictures above and the one to the left were shot at a high ISO using what little daylight was left and the TV. (There's a High School Musical chair under all those clothes.)
Making sure I'd be able to hold the camera steady was a whole 'nother story. I tried shooting tiny objects across the room in almost complete darkness. At this point, I was still exhausted from carrying the rentals home on the subway. (Imagine a box as wide as a doorway, as high as your knee, as heavy as a small child. Now put two more bags on top of that and one on your back.) I couldn't begin to imagine how tired I was going to be at the reception when I would really need to be holding the camera steady in the dark.
Now sure that the pictures would have motion blur but would also be large, relatively noise-free, and properly exposed, I decided to test out the lights. Above is what happened when I turned on the lights and used my point-and-shoot's flash. Yeah. The point-and-shoot tripped the strobe lights.
[insert moment to ponder repercussions]
This was my biggest regret in going down the rental path that I did. I knew before I picked them up that point-and-shoots would trip the lights (I'd seen it happen at other shoots) and I should have just taken my own light kit instead (it's from long before the time of wireless technology).
[insert moment of self-loathing for bad decision]
It seems that it would make sense to ask the rental house how to turn off the radio signal, but things that make sense rarely work out when I ask sales people for help. So, I didn't ask. Also, as soon as he had my signature, the guy vanished. Most likely, he would have opened the gigantic case, looked at the tiny-but-incredibly-heavy pack, and said, "Turn the radio receiver off." I did. The point-and-shoot kept on tripping the lights. Go wireless technology!
My little Elph didn't trip the lights here because I turned the flash off. This would be a more effective demonstration of the difference if I hadn't taken a picture of my big camera. But, it does remind me that I tried plugging my 1Ds into the kit and turning the radio dial to "off." The strobes were still slaves to the point-and-shoot.
Satisfied that I had at least put the "no one else is allowed to shoot when the Photographer is shooting" clause in my contract, I didn't have time to be angry at the rentals making me look retarded rather than slick. It was time to go test out the car.
I met LV at the Atlantic-Pacific station, and we went to go find the Zip lot together. I didn't have my cell phone with me, so I couldn't report immediately that the car smelled like smoke and was dirty. I had to do that from a pay phone later.
After a day of carrying my heavy rentals, finding out my low-light images wouldn't be the sharpest, getting lost with a copilot in the car, learning the point-and-shoots would kill my portable kit's batteries and possibly ruin the posed shots, I pulled the blankets over my head and prayed someone would call off the wedding.
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