Travelling Even Lighter

Manchester, May 2012
Copyright: Robin Whalley 2012
Contact: robin@lenscraft.co.uk

Today was a great day for photography. I met up with a friend in Manchester where we spent the entire day shooting urban scenes. The weather played ball for once and the light was simply stunning. It was the sort of crisp clean blue light that you get in early April which makes architectural images (especially metal and glass) simply sparkle. Take this image where I was fortunate enough to catch the light on the building whilst a rather dark storm cloud passed overhead. There is a clarity of light in this that you don’t ordinarily see in the UK in May.

What really stood out for both of us however was that by the end of the day we were still very fresh and could have carried on shooting for much longer. In the past we have both taken too much equipment, equipment that wasn’t needed and in truth never got used. Today was different however and we adopted the Lightweight philosophy.

Steve was shooting film and has a Nikon F90 with a 28-105mm lens carried in a small shoulder pack. I was using the GX1 + 14-45mm lens. I also carried a 9-18mm lens and a 45-200mm lens. I did use both of these during the day but only for a handful of images. I also carried my LX5, spare batteries, memory cards and a small monopod – you never know where you will venture on these sorts of days. All of this was in a small LowePro slingshot bag.

In truth I was carrying to much kit with me as I really only needed the GX1 and the 14-45mm lens. All of this would have fitted easily in a small shoulder pack that I have. Never the less, we were able to complete the entire day from 9:30 to 6:00 walking around and shooting. Not once did we run out of energy and when we did stop for the odd break and something to eat, our equipment didn’t get in the way of others.

Lightweight photography is definitely the way to go.