TTSOL is going to become a section on the site that I will populate over the coming weeks, months and years.  It stands for “Taking The Studio On Location”, and it’s really just an attempt to make life easier for myself.

Working in a studio environment is great.  It really is.  It’s warm, it’s dry, there’s always coffee available, you have easy access to all your equipment, lights and modifiers, you can shoot tethered to a laptop or desktop and usually you’re not too far from a local pub to grab something good for lunch (or at least have a kitchen and microwave).

But, you see, the thing is, you can’t really create sets that look like this inside a studio.

As much as I enjoy working in a studio, I love photographing people on location, especially in the Lake District.  For me, there’s just no comparison.

Working on location, however, presents some issues.  Sure, if you’ve got a big crew, it makes carrying a ton of equipment a lot easier, but you still can’t really drag the entire contents of your studio out into the middle of nowhere for a shoot.

Well, ok, the previous sentence is a bit of a lie.  You can.  It’s not cheap, it’s not easy, it’s not practical, but you can.  Unless you have huge budgets, it’s not something you’ll be wanting to do regularly.

But, I do miss some of those comforts of working in the studio when it’s just me, my subject, and maybe an assistant out in the middle of nowhere.

It would be unrealistic to be able to try and recreate all of the things I enjoy about being in a studio on any given location shoot, especially in locations like that last image up above, but there are certain aspects that can make life go a lot easier – and it’s not always the same aspects on every shoot.

This series of articles will document some of the problems I’ve experienced working on location, as well as some of the “You know what, this would be so much easier if…” moments that you generally don’t tend to face in the studio where everything is readily at your disposal.

Some of these posts might actually be kinda useful, reviewing specific pieces of hardware or detailing techniques I use on location to solve problems, and some of them will simply be ramblings and theory.

I haven’t solved all my location issues yet, hence this section on the site.  They’re not really problems that most of us think about, but as I said up at the top, simply an attempt to make my life easier.

What problems have you encountered shooting on location?  Did you manage to overcome them?  If so, how?  Post in the comments below, and let me know.