Occasionally, usually... Ok, most always, someone is capturing some "behind the scenes moments."
Usually the behind the scenes photos are fairly generic just so we can remember the people, the set rigging, lighting, and hey - it's a little bit of history for the people involved. This particular session for Yamaha Apparel was a heart stopper. It was the first time I had decided to go completely wireless so we wouldn't have to pull additional city permits to create a "walk around" for any cables or cords that might impede a city sidewalk causing a trip hazard. Simple enough, right?! Well, we played around with this type of setup at small events or bridal shoots, but to completely depend on it with a national brand... well, daunting is an understatement. Obviously it was a couple of sleepless nights, but you walk though it mentally over and over like practice and when you get there, it just works. Until it doesn't. Yes, there was a brief moment when the syncing stopped working for unexplained reasons. Off, on, batteries swap, trigger swap, "OMG, think" - and here's where, although pounding very strongly, the heart and time seem to suddenly stop for a brief moment. Thankfully (having learned the hard way things like this happen and to always have a back-up to the back-up plan), we were only down about 15 minutes as we switched from Canon strobe units to Nikon units we casually added to our gear "just in case" and Tada! Let's roll! We were back up and everything turned out just fine. We finally determined we had overheated the stone units.
Regardless, we learned some pros and cons and it was very freeing as we could pretty much bounce around our permitted location, providing endless vignettes to shoot against. Remote trigger tech has only gotten better since we've done this and way more reliable. If you've never gone wireless, and you want just a little extra something in a portrait, take your flash off camera and try it. I have no doubt you'll be pleasantly surprised.
Happy shooting!
Mat
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