The positives and negative of being an outdoor, on-location photographer in Wisconsin.

The one thing we have always prided ourselves on, is being an on-location photographer with a willingness to go pretty much anywhere (minus dangling from a cliff) for our clients. Being an on-location photographer is not for every photographer though.  In this blog post we are going to look at the positive and negatives to being an on-location photographer.

In the beginning when we started our business there was a decision to be made where were we going to be located the majority of the time, in a studio or on location? Yes, we started out as a sports and journalism photographer but as we progressed to portraits and other styles of photography we had a choice to make. In the end, we decided it was in our best interest to be an outdoor, on-location photographer. For us at Vagabond Photography we are outdoorsy people and love the ability to bring the outdoor world into our photos and being indoors day in and day out become repetitive to us.

Now understand we are not saying that if you decide to invest a brick and mortar studio and work out of one place you won’t do on-location work as well far from it. This blog post is mainly designed to address some of the upfront ups and down of deciding to work exclusively outdoors.

The pro of photographing most of your clients outside is that your back drop is ever changing. Every location can be found and sculpted to fit the clients own personal style and that works great because some clients may want a more country/nature setting while others may want more of an urban setting. While this does have its upsides the down side is that as a photographer we should really only use these locations two to three times a season/year to keep it fresh for future clients. Also one thing to keep in mind when photographing in a urban environment is your surrounding and is it safe for you and your clients to be there.

When setting up for a client’s session the main thing we as photographers must keep in mind is the weather. In Wisconsin and like other states in the snow belt we are all aware that the weather is something we always keep an eye on and it is constantly changing. It’s been stated that in Wisconsin you can have three of the four seasons all in one day and over the year we have seen it happen. In the summer, you still have to keep an eye on the temperature and with the added inconvenience of whether or not it may rain. Which is why having reschedule date in mind for you and your client is must even though we hope you never have too. Now this works for family and senior portraits and some corporate clients, but for weddings it’s a one day only deal with no reschedule date. For us in the north, come winter we keep in mind about how cold it is outside and what your clients are wearing. While a colored snow ball fight between loved ones on a field or ice-skating engagement sessions seems like a cool ideas for a photo session if it’s under 20F it may not be the best idea. This has two reasons one; clients and photographers get cold quick and frost bite is nothing to fool around with, secondly is gear can become brittle and is easily damaged when the temperatures get bellowing freezing.

One of the better things about working on location is we can go bigger. It allows photographers to incorporate larger things such as a cars, trucks, bikes or animals. Its comes in quite nice for senior portraits especially if a client would like to incorporate a classic car that they may of helped restored with their family. Also incorporating animals can bring extra life into a photo especially if it is a horse or the family dog and it is something that we always recommend our clients to consider incorporating into their sessions. The down side of both of these is going too big and not being able to deliver in said session this can hurt the image and return business. In addition, with large animals they can be easily spooked by flashes and noises if they are not used to being around those. Having recently attended ImagingUSA in Huston we watched as a long horn steer get spooked from behind when a fair amount of people were around it, thankfully no one was seriously injured granted this animal was not spooked by a flash but still this is an example of what can happen if you as a photographer are not prepared for what could happen. Animals decide when they are done, not you and you can only string them along so long.

Working outdoors and on site means that the light is always changing and that is something you always should be attentive to. If you start in the early morning around sunrise if will go from blue hues, to golden, to full white light and the opposite it true before sunset.  This is a great thing because depending on what/who/where you are photographing a photographer can get several different moods in a short amount of time. On the other side of the coin it can also be a hindrance if you are not ready for how fast the light is going to change. Working outside also means that you have to contend with the sun due to your time of day during your photo session. This is a time where one would want to remove excess light by using scrims and gobo’s. This is quite the opposite when working in a studio where light is much easier to control.

These are just a few of the positives and negatives we have encountered in Wisconsin over the past few years and it is just something you may like to consider when working outdoors. We can say that even though it presents several unique challenges the benefits far outweigh the negatives.

Backups, to your Backup!

So it has been a little while from my last blog post. In that time, I have learned to always make sure to have backups and if possible backups to your backup.

This applies to everything, have backups to your camera gear, editing and transportation. For example, my main camera is a Nikon D-800 and its backup is a Nikon D-300 and that cameras backup is an old film camera from the mid 90’s. For my files I backup them on external hard drives and on a cloud network and I don’t remove them from the memory cards until they are loaded on both. That way in case something happens to my files I am not out of the work I have just done for a client or for myself. As for transportation I have an 09 Dodge and that’s backup is a old tired 68 Pontiac Firebird its there if its need to but thankfully I have never had that need.

The lesson here is even though you may not be using your backup device never let it out of your reach because everything is going fine until, it’s not.  I ran into “IT’S NOT”, not too long ago.

I came home from an corporate event in Milwaukee, WI in the middle of June one night to find the black screen of DOOOMMM on my computer with a deadline looming quick. In the end we found out the video card had fried itself and took part of the motherboard with it but had left the hard drive intact with no loss of photos or business files.
It was at that point in time I realized the backup laptop was nowhere to be found. I had lent out to a friend whose computer shorted out and was waiting on a new one and need to keep their business going. So I had just broken my own rule number 1, “never let your back up out of reach because everything is okay until it isn’t.” Thanks to a local photographer friend Jeff Boomer Ernst who lent me his backup, I was back up and running the next day an able to make my deadline.
A day after deadline my backup was back and I was up and running and a few more days after that a new laptop arrived and business is back to normal.

In the youth of my business I had just committed a major foepaw and that was, I didn’t have my backup. Now I realize that for other photographers who companies are in their infancy, you may not have backups to your backup or backups in general, it can be expensive. Though it is something as you take on more and more clients, you do have to look into because if you screw up and miss a deadline or lose the work its can cost you in the long run. That client talks to other possible clients and it spiderwebs out and can cause more problem down the line. Even if you don’t really use your backups you need to have them. I got lucky and had the help of a friend and I was able to make deadline.

So I cannot express enough to beginning photographers, first to have a backup camera and second have a backup computer. If you cannot currently afford to do so make sure you have a backup plan in case the unthinkable does happen to you and that way you and your clients are not left out in the cold.