I was unloading batteries today after a recent shoot. We stage all of our gear on a table as we pull old batteries out and put new ones in. I looked down at our equipment pile and got to thinking about a Flashflavor post. Since ALL our gear is mixed up, how the heck do we know whose is what? Once you start to build a nice equipment inventory, its about darn time that it get cataloged or labeled so you know what ya got! We are a studio with 4 maybe 5 shooters at a given time. It is crucial to us that we have our ducks lined up in a row! Yeah, a Sb-28 is just the same as the next one but I have found that ALL my equipment seems to come to life and we experience problems with our gear at almost every wedding. How do you identify the problem what it is happening to? For at least 4 years, I worked with a pile of gear in and out of bags. When I found my wife, Sol Tamargo, I knew that something had to change. After the 2nd time of "hey, you got my batteries" or "do you have my pocket wizard, I've only got 2 and I should have 3" or whatever.. I was SICK of that. If you label your gear, you will actually know what is yours... novel thought eh? Ok, lets say that you are a 1 man / woman show and you know exactly what gear you have and therefore there is no need to label anything... Sounds like my thought train for my first 4 years. Guess what? Your WRONG! Why? Everything we use BREAKS at one point or another. Especially in the world of pocket wizards.. I have pulled my hair out a time or two switching cables, changing receiver units, checking batteries...when something fails, its important to identify it and move on. We have experienced MAJOR problems with the Pocketwizard system specifically. The short PC cords are poorly made for our work environment. With tugs, pulls, and catches, these things fail.. oops, there goes another $20 to buy a new one. So we started labeling our PC cords... Yep, i have them all labeled. If we have problems with one on assignment, I pull it out of operation, make a mental note of the cord's labeled number, tuck it away in a special place, and switch to a backup. This kind of mindset works with ALL your gear. We have tons of slave flash units. Flash tubes go out (afterall, the SB-28 has been discontinued for years). PC posts break, zoom heads go out, flashes get thrown in the ocean...heck, a plethora of problems greet you at every wedding. Its about dang time that you can identify your problem unit, put it aside, and address it later in the shop if necessary. Ok, I hope your getting the point. Check out these photo examples of my gear pile and their labels. I purchased my label maker for $29 at a local office store... you can too :) LABEL IT. WE even label our rechargeable batteries. These things have a life expectancy so at some point, they will fail. We recommend that you put a few different color rings around them when you buy them new, make a note somewhere citing the date when those colored batteries were purchased. It helps if you can identify which photographer gets which batteries... Also, I've included our trusty labeler in the lower left, next to a few of our batteries :) You can see that we actually label our gear with the first initial of the photographer who owns that particular unit. Everything has a label, lenses, camera bodies and tripods! Give this a try :) Hope this helps? Cheers! mateo

I was pleasantly surprised this week to find out that photohsop user magazine published a story I wrote about the trash the dress phenomenon. I was very excited to be featured (along with my wife) next some seriously talented folks. I had a chance to meet one of the photographers published in the article at WPPI, Cliff Mautner. I also parked myself next to the Nikon booth to hear him speak about making magical images... That guy is unbelievable! Check him out! David Ziser was also featured (a talented photographer and photoshop artisan). I have featured David's work here before on FF. I was hoping that I would get a chance to meet him at WPPI as well but with 1 zillion other photographers buzzing around everywhere, it was rather impossible to accomplish all my must see photographer goals...next time David! SO, if you are in the neighborhood of a bookstore, pick up or sign up to receive a copy of photoshopuser magazine. Those guys working with Scott Kelby really have it going on... OH, I had a chance to meet up with Dave Cross at the Leaving Las Vegas shoot a few weeks ago. I've watched numerous episodes of him on Photoshop TV... Also, a special thanks for RC over at layersmagazine.com for asking / motivating me to write this article! Anyway, keep your eyes peeled for the Magazine. Sol Tamargo & I have this very dramatic vision for the future of our Trash the Dress sessions. I'm not sure how long our clients are going to keep asking for them, but with the insane amount of worldwide buzz going on, I dont see it stopping anytime soon, especially with the destination wedding environment. We have 25 TTD sessions booked this year! Look out for some more crazy video's coming soon! Cheers! mateo PS, the photoshop guys & gals did a super job on the graphics... thanks again :)