As a photographer you need to prepared for anything and EVERYTHING.
You may not need all of these if you have arranged a 1-hour shoot for some quick headshots, but if you’re shooting a wedding, another family event or anything that takes at least half a day, these will come in handy. And if you don’t need all of these yourself, there’s a good chance someone around you will. Everyone will remember the photographer who saved the day!
ZIPLOCK BAGS AND RAINSLEEVES
If it rains, you’ll want to protect your gear, so bring along some plastic bags. I use the quart-sized Ziplock bags to put over my flashes and Rainsleeves to protect my camera and lens. Be careful not to put the plastic too close to flashes, though. I’ve heard that they can melt. This is such an inexpensive way to protect your gear, you’d be silly not to carry them.
A NICE-LOOKING CLOTHES HANGER
While custom wedding dress hangers are in style, at the moment, there are still times when you arrive to find the dress on a gaudy plastic hanger. I simply bought a 5-pack of hangers with dark wood and it turns out that they’re very inexpensive.
MEDICINE
Anything can happen when you’re away from your medicine cabinet: headaches, upset stomach, fatigue, diarrhea, just to name a few. Find a place that sells those individual travel-size medicine packs and stock up. You never know when you’ll need them.
SANDBAGS AND TENT STAKES
If you’ve ever used light stands at weddings, you’ve probably either had someone trip over them or had them blown over by the wind. Either way, I have a couple of solutions for you. The first is sand bags.
To place the bag securely, I recommend straddling the middle shaft of the stand with the two sides of the bag. If the wind is out of control and sand bags aren’t quite doing it, the get yourself some quality tent stakes. Don’t buy the little metal wire ones, they won’t work very well.
You can also try these Orange Screws. They’re an anchor that looks promising, but I haven’t tried them yet. If you get these, you won’t need to bring a hammer.
EXTRA EVERYTHING
Yep. Most people do this, too, but I think I need to say it again. BRING EXTRA EVERYTHING. Almost everyone has extra batteries and memory cards (I sure hope so), but not everyone has a backup camera, extra flash, light stand, or light modifier, just to name a few. If something is important, make sure you have a backup plan. That’s why I spent the extra money on a 5D Mark III this year: because it has 2 memory card slots. If people are going to pay me as much as they do, I need to have some peace of mind about the safety of their images. Not only that, but if that camera breaks, I have my 6D to fall back on – I used it for two years as my main camera and it’s quite capable.
FOOD AND WATER
Sure, this one seems obvious, but I recently started bringing a cooler to all of my weddings, and I haven’t regretted it. The first wedding I brought it to was so hot, that I drank almost four large bottles of water. Sometimes, there are bottles of water supplied at weddings, but you can’t always count on that. Also, I’m sure they don’t supply your favorite iced tea, iced coffee, or energy drink. Not to mention other snacks. When you’re hungry, thirsty, or both, you’re not likely to perform at your best. I tend to lose all of my creativity when I get really hungry or hot, so I make sure to bring what I need.
Get more tips over at Improve Photography.
Source: Improve Photography
