My Scariest Photoshoot Moment… 😱

Halloween makes me think about my scariest photography moment and how the gear I used has behaved strangely ever since.

See one of the few images from the shoot above.

The plan was to do a photoshoot at a small lake deep in the forest where I lived at the time. The project description was something like: Scarred girl in a dark forest by a lake with a giant teddy bear.

The model and I arrived to the location and the plan was to shoot in low light with some help of a Sigma EF-500 DG Super mounted on a stand triggered by some kind of IR gadget i can’t remember the name of.

Yes, this was some time ago and nowadays I always have my PocketWizard FlexTT5 and MiniTT1 which is the only choice for me when it comes to triggering Speedlites. Triggering with IR is by my experience not that reliable. It’s cheap though and it is a good low budget alternative.

There was no wind at all this night, and we had just begun shooting. Suddenly the stand with my Speedlite fell and almost simultaneously my Canon EOS 5D died.

Also when setting the Speedlite up again it was low on battery, and my camera too!!! It was just like the forest drained all the batteries at once. Yes, my batteries were charged at home earlier that day and I’ve always used high quality rechargable batteries and always nag everyone how important it is to choose the right ones which will never fail you. At the time I used high power GP 2700mAh units. Recently I’ve tried the Panasonic Eneloop Pro which are remarkable batteries by the way.

To keep things short, we had to reschedule the shoot, and I’ve never put my feet near that lake since. I’ve heard that there is a myth saying; that lake breaks electronic equipment and some campers have had their lamps blown out.

Creepy!?

Keep your gear safe and out of the woods.

/Johan – photography-gadgets.com