Last month I took on commission to photograph the baby daughter of a colleague.

I took my portrait gear round to his house & set up a studio in his living room. The kit consisted of the 8X7 Lastolite Hi-lite background which I illuminated with 2 180W studio strobes on stands. The main lighting came from my two  Elinchrom BXRi 500 flash units with softboxes. They were fired with the built-in Skyport remote triggers.

The kit went up OK although it was a tight squeeze in their living room. I used the vinyl trail which attaches to the bottom of the Hi-lite with velcro. The shoot went great, baby Tegan was a joy to work with. We managed to shoot for just under an hour & she didn’t moan, complain or cry once. We came away with a DVD full of shots which I understand the parents are very happy with.

Putting the gear away was a very different matter. Folding the Hi-lite is a definite skill which I have yet to conquer. We watched a tutorial on YouTube after failing miserably. We watched it quite a few times but I still ended up just bundling the whole thing into the back of the car. I finally managed to stow it away about a week later.