Tip of the week: Plan ahead and prepare equipment before a large shoot. I'm currently prepping and packing equipment for my wedding this weekend. This process can take some time since I'm cleaning and examining all of my equipment prior to the shoot. It involves cleaning all of the glass, cleaning the camera sensors, charging batteries, cleaning out my camera bags, and double checking all miscellaneous equipment prior to packing. I will also use the time to research my locations for the wedding if available and also memorizing names for the wedding party. This memorization can help me facilitate the photos during the day when dealing with larger groups. I will usually go through this same checklist of preparations prior to any large shoot. For my California trip last year, I studied photos from the area that we were planning to visit and made notations of the best places to be and when to be there for the best lighting.

The wedding this weekend is going to be out of town at a venue that I've never been to. For this reason, I am going to bring a large variety of equipment to insure that I will be prepared for anything that the location can throw at me. I'm bringing three cameras, seven lenses, two flashes, wireless flash transmitters, two flash stands, two umbrellas, a reflector, a tripod, a step-stool, six camera batteries, 24 AA batteries, and around 80 gigabytes of memory.