We’re not very cool. The latest trends are not things we’re really up to speed with. Maybe in the 90’s we were, but those days of coolness are behind us. One of us is approaching 30 and the other is holding strong at 39… and miraculously that number never changes 😉  Babies, work, gray hair, houses, grandkids, and life in general have overthrown all logical necessity to be cool on a regular basis.
We’ve blogged before about the clothes we like to wear to weddings, and in all honesty we put a ton of thought and research into what would look good. On most day’s we don’t ever get out of our jeans and T-shirts, but on a wedding day it’s our goal to look like the selves we know are in there… the cool kids. The selves who take the time to put some makeup on and rock those adorable bubble necklaces (people still wear those right)? What we wear to reflect our brand while shooting a wedding is very important, and we feel like we have the wardrobe nailed down. Then we looked at how we carry our equipment and said “no no no, this will not do” in a very Meryl Streep in the Devil Wears Prada sorta way.
There were two major problems with how we carried our equipment while shooting: 1. it looked pretty terrible and 2. it was physically unacceptable. When we pack up our car and head out to a wedding all of our gear goes into a sturdy Pelican case for safe keeping while we transport. When we arrive about half of the gear stays in the case for backup, and the other half goes into our over the shoulder camera bags. These bags are how we get from point A to point B. When it comes time to shoot though, we would each have two camera bodies around our necks on basic, came with the camera, neck straps. NOT GOOD! We like to be ready for everything and between the two of us we like to have 4 very different lenses available at all times, without having to dig into our bags to make the switch. By the end of a wedding day our necks, backs and feet were killing us. One Sunday morning at a consultation the day after a long wedding, we both looked at each other and groaned “there has to be a better way”. There is… enter Holdfast camera straps.
A dual, holster style camera strap is one that’s been around for a while. There are lots of other options out there, and from what we found most of those options included black padded fabric that screams “wedding photographer!”. We’re not feeling that look so much, and that’s why when we found the Holdfast company we got a little excited. They offer a dual camera holster strap that does not look like a camera strap. There are several different options to choose from, and the materials are outstanding. After a lot of research we decided to invest in quality, awesome looking holsters to wear while we shoot on a wedding day. We chose the Bridle Tan leather option, and added two wrist straps and two portrait extenders for our left side camera bodies.
The straps are like a leather belt an they go over both shoulders with a criss cross in the back. The camera bodies are secured with a screw at the tripod mount and clip onto a leather slider that attaches to the holster strap on each side. The camera bodies slide up and down the holster strap when we use them. When not in use, the cameras hang at our hips and because they are snug to our bodies and not swinging around on a long neck strap we are able to move around, run around, jump, dance and the cameras stay safe. Our hands are free to hold a bouquet, fluff a dress, move a centerpiece or even a cocktail table when we need them to be. These things are pretty awesome. The best part is the weight is even on our shoulders, and put in the right place on our backs. So the strongest part of our backs are evenly supporting the weight of the equipment and we no longer feel like zombies after a wedding. In fact, we felt good!
We love these things and we’re so excited that we found an awesome way to carry our gear while shooting, that doesn’t kill us. The bonus is they also look pretty freekin awesome. We don’t scream “wedding photographer here!” because they don’t really look like photographer gear… and we love that.
Now, our next feat is to find comfortable shoes that are not a version of a clog 😉 Any suggestions are welcome!
Have a great Tuesday!
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