I just recovered from 3 days of location shooting for my clients at Gerber. I was exhausted! I did things I have never done before for any of my clients.
I've been shooting commercially since, well, for a long time (before disco!). In all that time, I have shot available light and I have shot using studio strobes, but I have never used an on-camera flash. I don't do weddings or parties, so I never really needed to use one. There is a Sunpak flash in my camera case however because it belonged to my dad and I took it. It's been in there for maybe two years and this week, for the first time, I used it. A lot.
I bought a new lens for this job from one of my former students, Steve at Unique Photo. It's a Tamron 28-300mm zoom with vibration correction . I used it with my Sunpak flash and spent the days shooting meetings and parties for Nestle, the new owner of Gerber.
This job required three very long days. I worked with Kim Lime the coordinator for the meetings who arranged for there to be a room for me to set up as a portrait studio. I shot over 50 portraits, the opening meetings, the closing party, 7 breakout meetings, and a few other shots. 13 GB of files in all.
Aside from the portraits which involved a full studio set up (brought in on my gurney), for this job I used a 10-20mm lens, a 28-300mm lens, a Sunpak 333 flash, 2 sets of 4 AA batteries & charger, and my trusty Fuji S3.
Here is where the "professional" in professional photographer comes in. When you are a true pro, there is NO place for mistakes. For this job, I knew that I didn't know much about on-camera flashes so I assembled my preferred set up (28-300mm lens, flash and camera), and shot an informal dinner at our church on Sunday night. Everyone there knows I am a photographer and was patient as I made all of my mistakes and learned how the equipment worked. I discovered which settings were best, and that practice served me very well over the next three days on the real job.
