On-the-go photographers can no longer afford to be bogged down by big bulky equipment and, increasingly, they’re finding out that they don’t need to be. With computers, lighting gear and digital capture devices getting more and more portable while providing better quality photographers are realizing they really can do more with less. Here are three pros who’ve been able to shed the clunky equipment and stay sleek and mobile with the latest gear.


Bambi Cantrell: On the Road with the Lenovo W700ds Mobile Workstation

When the Lenovo Thinkpad W700 came out last year, wedding and portrait photographer Bambi Cantrell was one of the first people to get their hands on this fully stuffed mobile workstation. Along with a gorgeous, super-bright 17-inch screen, the W700 came loaded with a trove of goodies designed to appeal to photographers and graphic designers including a built-in Wacom digitizer, built-in color calibration system, built-in back-up RAID storage, built-in card reader; and a super-fast processor.

Lenovo recently added to those extras with a truly unique feature for a laptop—a 10.6-inch second screen which slides out from the PC cover behind the primary display. For photographers editing photos, the second screen provides extra visual real estate for stashing your tools while working in Photoshop.

The new laptop from Lenovo is called the Thinkpad W700ds, with the “ds” standing for “dual screen.” Cantrell quickly made the upgrade to the new version and has found all sorts of uses for that extra screen.

“I put my tools on there, I put my browser on there, either Adobe Bridge or Lightroom. I’m a Photoshop Actions junkie and I work in layers a lot so I’ll throw the pallet on the small screen,” she says. “It’s amazing how much real estate it opens up. If you look at the tools palette, it’s the perfect size for the extra screen. There’s something visually appealing about having a clean slate to work on. It’s good for the mind.”

Though she liked the previous version of the W700—which is still in Lenovo’s line-up for photographers who don’t want the extra screen—the “ds” model really sealed the deal for her.

“Computers don’t generally get me all woozy and I’m not the type of person who has to have the latest and greatest. But I’ve found this laptop to be a really valuable tool. I use it everyday.”

The most obvious change in her workflow since using the W700ds has been how much less gear she has to travel with now. Most glaringly, Cantrell no longer has to bring along her 9 x 12 Wacom tablet anymore.

“I don’t know how many Wacom tablets I’ve left behind in the backseat pocket of the plane. Now that a digitizer is built into the laptop, it’s one more piece of hardware I don’t need to carry around.”

Since the Lenovo workstation has RAID storage built right in, Cantrell no longer has to travel with extra hard drive for mobile backups either.

All the extras means she gets a lot more work done on the plane than she used to. But it also means she can get a lot more work done at home without having to go to her studio.

“I was hired to do some work for Estée Lauder and they wanted the work fast. At the time, I was sick but I knew this client wasn’t going to listen to excuses. I got the laptop in December, and I did every bit of work on the image files right on the laptop while lying in bed. There was no downtime. I was so sick I couldn’t go to my office but I was able to get the work done anyway.”


Bob Krist: Have Lighting Kit, Will Travel

Though Bob Krist’s assignments for National Geographic Traveler and other publications take him all over the world, it was the corporate world that actually inspired him to create his unique mobile lighting kit. Comprised of a well-thought-out collection of umbrellas, portable light stands, ballheads, brackets, clamps, grids, snoots, and colored gels—among other things—which Krist uses with his Nikon Speedlights, the kit has become something of a legend among itinerant photographers.

“The need for the kit actually began in the 1990s when I used to do a lot of annual reports for corporate clients and was trying to segue into more editorial work,” Krist explains. “Even in those days, budgets were being shrunk and I started looking for ways to do nice lighting with less.”

The kit has evolved over the years as Krist found himself doing more and more editorial assignments for travel magazines, though he notes that the Bogen Manfrotto compact lightstands and Westcott collapsible umbrellas have been there since the beginning. With overhead storage bins at a premium these days since airlines began charging extra to stow bags under the plane; and with a growing crop of small lighting enthusiasts forming around Web sites such as Strobist.com, Bob’s kit has found a new audience.

“In the past, it was a pretty specialized market that was into small strobe photography and there was only a small cadre of pros traveling light,” he says. “But now that we have digital cameras that can give you up to two f/stops of image quality in low light, you don’t need the big lights any more. You can do it smaller. And pros are feeling budgetary cuts like crazy. Everybody’s cutting corners and everybody’s saying you’ve got to do more with less.”

The kit, which weighs approximately 25 pounds fully loaded, is based around a rolling Hardigg Storm Case iM2500 which retails for about $130. There’s been so much interest in the kit Adorama now sells it to photographers either fully assembled on as separate pieces. To find out more about it, go to Adorama.com and enter SKU: JMLKE into the search box.

Though Krist often checks the kit when he flies, it’s the right size to the meet carry-on requirements for all major airlines. “That’s my whole thing,” he says. “I’m on a never ending search to find smaller and lighter tools that will do the job.”

Chase Jarvis: iPhone as Photo Sketch Pad

To say that photographer Chase Jarvis is intrigued with the camera built into his iPhone could be an understatement. In fact he even admits that “obsessive” is probably a better word.

“I average between 1 and 200 photos a day with the iPhone,” Jarvis notes. “But the most I’ve taken is about 1,000 iPhone photos in one day. Yes, ‘obsessive’ is probably the right word.”

It might sound odd for a guy who typically shoots with a high-resolution Nikon digital SLR or Hasselblad medium format camera to be so enamored with the measly

2-megapixel P imager in his iPhone. Despite its limitations, Jarvis finds the iPhone camera to be charmingly basic. Even better is the fact that it’s with him at all times which is something he can’t say about his large Nikon D3X.

“For me, the iPhone camera is an opportunity to stay creative every single day at many points during the day,” he says. “Even if I’m standing in line to get a cup of coffee, it’s a way to stay connected to the creative side of life. It’s also a little bit of an escape.”

For Jarvis, the iPhone camera serves as a photographic sketchbook where he can hash out small ideas to expand on later.

Jarvis has sparked something of a movement around iPhone photography thanks to his daily uploading of images shot with the device to his Twitter account (@ChaseJarvis), along with his popular blog post from last year entitled “5 Tips for Making Great iPhone Photos.” In the post, which you can find on his blog at www.chasejarvis.com, Jarvis offers some basic but valuable advice including: “Keep it simple,” and “Avoid fast-moving subjects and low light.” Below each tip he follows up with extra detail, such as this not-so-obvious nugget:

“The shutter release on this camera goes click when you release your finger from this button, not when you press the button. As such, do all your composing with your finger on the trigger and simply lift your finger when you like what you see in the viewer.”

More than anything though, the iPhone has taught Jarvis that it’s not the gadget as much as it is the creative impulse behind it. “It seems so much of the world is geared toward gadgetry and gimmicky tech stuff. While that’s an important part of the business, it leaves off the more important part which is how to foster a creative life.”

At the same time, Jarvis recognizes the inherent limitations of the iPhone camera and tries to play within the device’s rules. Number one is that any kind of movement is generally very difficult to capture.

“Most of my iPhone pictures are intentional. Some ideas come from architecture or styling and I’ll use them again in the future when working with a model, for instance. I’ll think, ‘I like that look,’ or ‘that visual interests me. I can use it later.’ I don’t use it as a breaking news device though that’s a viable option as we found out with the famous US Airways landing on the Hudson River photo which was shot with an iPhone.”

Aside from Internet postings of his iPhone images, Jarvis is unsure what else he wants to do with them but hinted he has a bigger project in mind.

“That’s the wonderful thing about iPhone photos. They create a sense of freedom in you.”