Sandbags. This is why people use sandbags. And assistants. Yesterday was a rough day on my equipment. I did a four location shoot with the band, Sounds of the Nations. The first location was an amazing partially dried up lake bed that I had spotted while driving to Karimnagar a couple of times. The band has six members, and they brought their lighting guy to assist me. It was quite windy at the lake, and even though I didn’t use any umbrellas or modifiers, the lights were not stable in the wind. While I was busy catching another stand that was falling, my Whitelightning x1600 crashed to the ground, smashing the plug in the back. The destruction of the plug most likely saved the majority of the unit from receiving damage, but the unit’s overheating warning kept me from using the light the rest of the day. Not 15 minutes later, my Speedlite 430EX placed on my lightweight tripod toppled over onto the rock, smashing the LCD screen. The flash still works fine, but I cannot see what mode or ratio the flash is on. Both of these incidents exemplify the need for both sandbags and real assistants. Note: I surprised myself with how calmly I reacted to my equipment breaking. For some reason, it really didn’t faze me.
Pictures will come soon. Or soon enough. Moving to Mumbai might delay that.