Malibu Wedding - Part 1 : The Prep Work

I've been meaning to blog this for a while, but just got swamped with life. You know how it is.

Backstory. My friend Mike and I usually geek out chat about photography during our kids' swim class. Then one day Mike asks, "Hey, I got asked by this guy I used to party with back in the day if I would photograph his wedding in Malibu next month. I'm thinking I'm gonna need help. You want in?" He then fills me in on the details about what he knows about Berwin (the groom) and the wedding. It's going to be a crazy fun time!

I have Jewish friends. I even have a Jewish uncle. But I had never been to a Jewish wedding. And only vaguely familiar with Orthodox Jews. So! This being Jewish Orthodox wedding, I did a little bit of research. I read some info online as well as asked my Jewish friends of things to expect at a Jewish wedding. Some people told me it was going to be short, some people told me it was going to be long. Hmm... Luckily Mike had the reins on this assignment and kept in good contact with Berwin. Mike also took care of finding and booking the flight and hotel for our stay in Malibu. And he also did a lot of research about Jewish weddings than I did and shared his knowledge with me.

I took this gig as an opportunity to buy some more gear! I only had a small camera bag and wanted to upgrade, so a new bag was high on my wish list. My requirements:
- Large enough to carry all my photo gear, plus laptop
- Small enough to fit as carry-on
- Light enough for me to carry
- Durable
- Not too expensive ('cause I'm a tightwad)

I researched bags until I was blue in the face. There are so many wonderful choices out there! I finally decided on a Think Tank Streetwalker HardDrive. It holds everything (except my reflector). It's awesome and fit the bill perfectly.



Not sure how well you can see, but there are two camera bodies, 5 lenses (including the 70-200), diffuser, strobe, external hard drive, random other stuff like card reader, batteries, filters. And my laptop fits in a separate compartment in the back with a side zipper, easy for taking out when going through airport security.

Along with my bag, I bought a memory card reader and a portable/durable external hard drive, both firewire compatible for fast transfer times, a new battery charger and some rechargeable AAs for my flash, more memory cards, and extra camera batteries since I only had one for my MarkII.

Sabrina generously loaned me two lenses for the shoot. What would I do without her? I hope she didn't miss her lenses too much.

After I gathered all my gear and did my cultural research and got more of a feel of what the wedding was going to entail, I was excited!

Next up... Part Two: The Non-Rehearsal