![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/various\/wisconsin-airport-800.jpg\")
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You can’t really see it in this photo taken from the lounge at this small airfield in Wisconsin, but the snow was coming down hard there. \u00a0Hard enough to cause flight delays and cancellations. \u00a0However, en route to the airport, the snow was only falling lightly, so I wasn’t concerned at the time. \u00a0After all, this is just a few weeks away from the start of Summer.<\/p>\n
I had presented a week-long workshop in Wisconsin as part of the Wisconsin Professional Photographers School at Treehaven, and was due to fly back home to New Jersey on Friday afternoon. \u00a0I absolutely had to get home sometime that Friday night, since I had a wedding the next day that I was photographing. \u00a0So when the progression of flight delays and cancellations were announced, it was soon obvious I would miss my connecting flight in Minneapolis. \u00a0This was enough reason for a mild state of panic – at some point I knew I would be late for the wedding the next day.<\/p>\n
But I had my iPhone with me. \u00a0Of course. \u00a0I have this thing clutched in my left hand most of the day anyway. But I digress. \u00a0I had the contact info of all my photographer friends in New Jersey. \u00a0I sent out text messages to a few of them, hoping someone would have the day open to help me out. \u00a0A few were even willing to change the times of their existing photo shoots to help me out. \u00a0However, my friend Geri Nelson was free on the day and immediately offered to help out. \u00a0Better yet, she lives in the same town as the bride and myself. \u00a0I phoned my bride, and left a phone message with her. \u00a0And then I finalized details with Geri. \u00a0From the timing it looked like I would be able to join the wedding at the start of the ceremony. \u00a0Which meant I would rely on Geri to cover the bride’s preparation. \u00a0But, just to be sure in case of more hiccups, I told Geri to be prepared to shoot the entire wedding.<\/p>\n
The flight left at 7:30 pm that Friday night, and I over-nighted in Minneapolis. The next morning then was a mad dash to get home from the airport, and grab the rest of my equipment before heading out to photograph the wedding. \u00a0I did arrive just before the ceremony, and easily got into the swing of events. Geri stayed with me through the ceremony and portrait session, and I continued until the end of the wedding reception. \u00a0I was also fortunate that I had a couple that was easy-going and very cool about it all.<\/p>\n
The point to this rambling anecdote? <\/p>\n 1. I had all relevant info on hand.<\/strong><\/p>\n Via my iPhone, I had contact details, phone numbers and addresses. \u00a0I had my calendar available to me. \u00a0I could check flight details via an iPhone app. \u00a0(Flight Track Pro, if you’re interested.)<\/p>\n You may well ask, what if I had lost my iPhone? \u00a0I have everything synched online via my MobileMe account. \u00a0I can’t rely on just one device. \u00a0So either way I would somehow be able to get to what I needed to know.<\/p>\n 2.\u00a0I knew I could rely on a network of photographer friends to help me out. <\/strong><\/p>\n That is the contradiction – the very photographers that I compete with in my business as a wedding photographer, are some of the people that I can immediately rely on to help me out in an emergency. \u00a0And I know they will gladly help me, as I would help them in similar situations.<\/p>\n A multi-shooter studio could easily swap out shooters when needed, but as individual business owners \/ photographers, we need a network of friends. \u00a0We refer overflow work to each other. \u00a0And we help each other with advice and support. \u00a0The network can be an informal one – everyone surely has friends – or a more formally established one, or even via a Facebook group of like-minded photographers.<\/p>\n So a back-up plan in photography doesn’t necessarily just mean equipment back-ups; or how you back-up and archiving digital files; or that you absolutely need equipment and business insurance … a back-up plan is also about how you deal with problems in case you deal with unforeseen events.<\/p>\n Our friends over in Europe had an unhealthy dose of this recently when that volcano-with-the-unpronounceable-name soured everyone’s lives there. \u00a0I am sure they have stories to tell!<\/p>\n You can’t really see it in this photo taken from the lounge at this small airfield in Wisconsin, but the snow was coming down hard there. \u00a0Hard enough to cause flight delays and cancellations. \u00a0However, en route to the airport, the snow was only falling lightly, so I wasn’t concerned at the time. \u00a0After all, Read more inside…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30402,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3100","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wedding-photography","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3100"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3100"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33571,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3100\/revisions\/33571"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3100"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=3100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nWhen trouble hit, I had\u00a0a system of back-ups<\/strong> in place, whether formal or informal …<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"