The Friday before the double

So it's getting late on a Friday night and I have a big weekend ahead of me. It's been a manic week trying out new kit, keeping in touch about the exhibition and trying to follow the flow of news pre-Photokina, and I have a two wedding weekend. Tomorrow and Sunday will both be chocka with a wedding a day and I'm really getting psyched up for it. I have been very lax recently with this blog so am going to try and reverse that by overloading this weekend with it. A hectic schedule with a blog thrown in to boot ahs seemed sometimes to be my idea of hell. Why add another thing to the to-do list when it's already pushing your limits? Because it's only in these testing times that creativity and expansion can really play their part. I'm certainly not suggesting that blogging in any form is a profound exercise but if I'm ever going to be able to do what I want with it then it's through these kind of experiments that I'll achieve that.

Following blogs like Vincent Laforet's for Newsweek at the olympics has been inspiring. The photography he has produced on the timescale and intensity that came with it are enough to make me think he is some kind of robot, but to then add a well written, interesting blog amidst all of that has transformed the medium. He writes himself about 'blogging photographers' as a new breed of media personnel and I am totally in agreement with him. Journalism has always been in flux and here is the latest manifestation. In an age where visual imagery and reality tv are king what could be better than a journalst covering himself covering the biggest event in international sport? Voyeurism on speed, especially for us togs. Like every genius of their medium he is reinventing it as he goes (check out the tilt-shift work he's been doing recently for a very oblique example) and expands it. But that's enough credit for the guy. Amazing he is; nough said.

So here am I totally preoccupied by the kit I'm using for the weekend realising this is far less interesting to you out there than the olympics yet to me it is all encompassing. I have the kit list (Nikon D3, D700, Nikkor 24-70 f/2,8, 70-200 f/2.8, SB-900's and a pocket wizard set with various clamps etc) and yet I am always wondering the best way to carry it all. I want comfort, mobility, quick access and a relative smartness as to not insult the bridal couple. The impossible naturally. My Billingham is too overloaded and will kill my back over half a day with this let alone two full shoots. The mini-trekker is just, painfully microscopically, too small and the vertex is clunky, cumbersome and a whole lot obvious. If anyone out there has any suggestions for this by the way PLEASE get in touch.

So there's at least one issue to take away from the keyboard with me. I'll post something tomorrow after day one and try to make it more than a line's worth. Check out Laforet's stuff for inspiration like I do. Wish me luck. Marie and Pat, I'll see you tommorow.