Always Have a Back-Up

I had an opportunity to work with Diêlha again.  She was one of the models who participated in my Spanish Harlem project, and she asked me to photograph her vintage photo shoot.  A couple of weeks ago, she posted in the Facebook group that we’re members of that she was looking for a photographer to photograph her session.  The original photographer wasn’t able to make it.  I reached out to her, and said that I’d love to photograph her.  We planned to meet in the afternoon at the Arboretum.  Diêlha said that she had two – three looks.  We decided that we would shoot as many outfits as we could since the sunsets at 5:20pm these days.

My husband and I had an afternoon date to watch the football game at a local sports bar.  Once the game was over, we drove home so that I could drop him off, and pick up my gear.  I had both camera bodies, as usual, and I packed my Godox.  When we met, the sun was setting, and it was golden hour.  The light was gorgeous, but I still wanted to use OCF.  I set-up my D750, and shot off a couple of frames.  All of a sudden, the screen went black!  Oh, my goodness!  I turned the camera off and on, but the display was still black.  However, the settings display was still on.  I quickly put the camera away, and took out my second camera body, the D700.  This is why I like the Nikon brand.  My D700 is the older body, but I can still use my current lenses on it.  What I didn’t set-up was a faster shutter speed to work with high speed sync.  I made this change during Diêlha’s outfit change.

When Diêlha returned, I suggested that we go to this stage-like area to shoot.  I’m conquering my apprehension of shooting in public.  What I am noticing is that people really don’t care.  They’re more concerned with staying out of your shot!

I was so happy that I had my back-up camera with me since this was Diêlha’s session.  I would have been very embarrassed if I could not have completed the session. This is why, as a professional photographer, that you should always have a back-up camera body.  You never know when your gear may not operate correctly.