Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/03/13
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Well, for all of you who want to be a location photographer, I thought I'd tell you about my day, an average day in the life of a location photographer. Was on assignment shooting photos for a multinational corporation's employee magazine, a magazine they distribute world wide. Got to the location around 8:30am to start setting up lights. Plug in the first one and it will not fire. Just a little pop is all. I am thinking "I just had these lights overhauled in December and they have worked flawlessly since, heck they worked great Friday?" Anyway I try reinstalling the flash tubes, does not work. So I figure my head is dead and switch to a brand new one, just bought it last week. It does not work.....I fiddle around with it and it makes a few strange noises so I QUICKLY unplug it. Have messed with the lights for about an hour so far. The store manager comes up and tells me that the regional Vice president, who I am supposed to have already photographed, is waiting and needs to be leaving...so I take him outside to shoot him with a little on camera fill since I can't seem to make my strobes work. Go back inside and start fiddling with my lights again, in a different location this time thinking something may have been bad with the previous plug. My assistant is holding the head (the new one that I just bought last week) and sets it down after we have been testing it, seems to be stuck on full power. BOOM the damn thing blows up. WOW never had that happen before. Scares the s*&@! out of everyone in the place including me. At this point I am about ready to SCREAM One dead, and I mean DEAD, strobe and one that is not working properly. Call Ben Chapnick at Black Star to appraise him of my problems and concerns about pulling the shoot off in time for deadline....heck in 1.5 hours I have destroyed half of my lighting gear!! Have not done that in 15 years of shooting.... Call White lightning and go over my problems with them for suggestions. We check voltage and resistance and such on power....all checks fine they think it maybe condensation, something I don't buy. Anyway we fiddle around for another hour and somehow get two strobes functioning. Call Ben back and tell him I have enough gear working to do shoot so no need to call client. Needless to say blowing up a strobe and having one go flat on me frazzled me and started my day off badly. Nothing worse than to be shooting and not be trusting your gear. Spent rest of day shooting inside, outside, from lift truck 60 feet up in air, around shop. Only only one more weird thing happened with the lights. Plug in light inside and the modeling light begins to go from dim to bright rapidly....QUICKLY unplug light and plug it into voltage regulator and it works fine. So I guess they were having some weird power surges there today and that is why my strobe blew up. Took the dead strobe and wounded one to White Lightning and talked with them. I go back tomorrow and pick it up. I hope it is covered under warranty, else I lost money today. Go home package up film and rush to Fed-Ex to meet shipping deadline. Ah well the joys of Location photography. No matter it beats the heck outta working for a living. And what did I learn today? ALWAYS carry voltage regulating power strips!! Do not want this problem to reoccur.... I just turned on my outside light above my back door and it blew out.....think someone is trying to tell me something? - -- Harrison McClary http://www.mcclary.net