For my standard family portraits I travel to the locations a bit lighter, rarely with an assistant, which keeps the costs down for my clients and allows me to work a bit more freely. Of course by not bringing *everything* you can restrict yourself too. "if only I brought this" I'll catch myself thinking, but really, more creativity can stem from the adversity restrictions can impose.

It was a cloudy, overcast day as you can see, but I wanted to show the clouds. Though if I were to use a non-flash exposure would completely blow them out - rendering the top of the frame pure white. To balance the scene I needed to use all three of my Canon speedlights (2 580exII's & a 430ex). I hooked them up to a 15' TTL cord from flash zebra, mounted them on a lastolite triflash, and powered them through an umbrella. The reason I needed to use all three was that I was going to use high-speed sync, which allowed me to fire at 1/8000th a second (usually they're stuck at 1/250th), but I was going to lose a lot of power per flash, and the light wouldn't carry very far.

Even then, I wasn't able to drop my aperture below f2.8 (a shallower depth of field) because f3.2 or higher was underexposed (I would have needed yet another light)... That also restricted which lenses I could use, and I think the shallow dof compliments the scene, allowing V to stand out against a grey backdrop, but retaining enough detail back there that you know what's going on.

What do you think? I'd love to hear how others pack for a shoot, if you always bring everything you've got, or if you're selective every time.