PhotoFavs Wednesday: Shooting A Wedding Cowboy Style

Good Morning Everybody,

WOW! What a day shooting yesterday - our models were handsome and gorgeous, our locations were fantastic, and the class loved it!  Today we head out on Day Two of shooting with the class.  We are hitting a few very nice parks with lots of great places to shoot.  Today is our LONG 12 hour day since we don't wrap till about an hour after the sun goes down so we can shoot the Cincinnati skyline at dusk - always a prize winner in the camera by the end of the day.

That said, I want to get right into today's post for you.  It's about a really clever mount for your camera and really makes easy work of camera handling when shooting a wedding.  Please read on.

Shooting A Wedding Cowboy Style

At the WPPI Convention, I ran into an old friend whom I hadn't seen in a while.  Anyway, he sees me and comes up and says "Hi". We had a nice visit and then he proceeds to lead me over to this booth showing this very clever camera rig for holding your camera.  It's called the Spider Camera Holster [link].

I strapped it on and gave it a try.  It really was pretty cool how it worked.  I took one home with me and couldn't wait to try it on my next shooting assignment. That happened a couple of weeks ago when I strapped it on for a multi-day Bar Mitzvah I was shooting.  Wow, did it make life easy.

I generally shoot with two cameras at an event - one for the regular shots and the other is my "available light" camera with a 50mm F1.4 lens on it.  I leave the "available light" camera around my neck, which after a while, becomes a bit uncomfortable.  I know there are other straps available but they just don't look good when you're wearing a suit at a wedding.  Ya' know, you've got to look good when your shooting ;~)

Anyway, the Spider comes with a sumo wrestler type belt for the really heavy camera rigs.  That's fine, but remember. you've got to look good on the job.  As I unpacked the Spider, I discovered that I didn't need to use the sumo wrestler belt.  I could just attach it to my regular belt which I did.  After a few tries, I found that I could "draw" my camera out like a "six shooter" and be firing in no time.  I also found that with a little practice, I could "holster" it back to my side quickly and with relatively little effort.

It just worked like a charm all weekend.  I used it again last week in Cabo, Mexico on a family portrait shoot, and all day yesterday during my Master Class.  It is just soooo convenient to have the second camera hanging off of my belt. I sure wish I would have found the Spider earlier and have saved years of neck stress and discomfort.  I give it "two thumbs" way up for shooting events.

Check out Spider's site right here and give their video a watch too.  Then check out my video below to see it in action - shooting a wedding cowboy style. All in good fun.

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Hey gang, that's it for me today, we've got a long day, but it should be a blast.  I'll see everybody tomorrow for another episode of Business day Thursday.  Tomorrow's topic, "Should You Give The Money Back?' You'll like the read.

See ya' then,  -David