Getting there is half the battle

If you’re on location a lot, with loads of gear in tow, you’ll know the logistical pain that comes with photography and travel (the stress too). It’s the part of the process most likely to bring you unstuck with forgotten items or gear broken in transit. And so for working photographers it helps to have a thorough and systematic approach to travel rather than a haphazard one.

Needless to say the more gear you take with you the greater the headache. As a news photographer you might get away with what you can carry onto the plane but as a commercial guy, van loads might be in order. Either way, having a good system down pat means you’ll be much less likely to forget something small but important — like spare batteries — or to find that your cameras are in more pieces than they’re meant to be once you arrive.

Regardless of what you’re packing and how you actually pack it, standardisation and routine are the keys. Everything has its place and that place shouldn’t change. That way it will be glaringly obvious as soon as something’s missing.

Standardisation also means you’ll always know exact bag weights before you leave for the airport, which means no nasty surprises at check-in.

On the choice of cases themselves, you face a trade-off between robustness, weight and cost. The gold standard is Pelican. You can drive a truck over one of these things, or submerge it in the ocean for half an hour in the knowledge that your $60,000 Hasselblad will be in ship-shape afterwards. Cases manufactured with military customers in mind should give you and I sufficient peace of mind.

There’s a downside though and it’s in both weight and price. These things add kilos to your total which means either a toll on your back or one on your wallet if you’re flying. But if your priority above all others is to arrive at your destination with your gear ready to work, then buying Pelican is an easy choice to make.

If you want something that’s lighter and therefore saves you money every time you put it on a plane, there’s Tenba. These are built to withstand the rigours of air travel minus the two-tone truck or the deep-sea stress tests which means they’re also much lighter. They’re no cheaper than the Pelican on the initial outlay – often dearer in fact – but they strip kilos off at check-in, and therefore, dollars off your luggage bill.

So it’s all a trade-off. But if money’s no issue, you can have the best of both worlds by putting a soft case, like a Lowepro or ThinkTank inside a hard-case, like a Pelican for the transit and then leave the heavy stuff behind when you’re on the shoot itself.

Whatever your choice, be warned that nothing gets the attention of luggage screeners quite like a big black box full of unidentified metal objects, complete with an almighty padlock to keep them out. And so they’ll break in to inspect, and your case will reach you unlocked at Arrivals.

The answer is to use TSA compliant locks which allow airport security to look inside without the need for strong-arm tactics. And when your case meets you at the other end, the locks themselves will indicate that they’ve been opened by a screener’s special key. As airport baggage inspectors themselves aren’t universally trustworthy characters, you can then check that everything’s in order before you leave the airport.

I’ve flown internationally with seven or eight large Pelican cases on occasion, and you’d be surprised how easy it is for a missing one to go unnoticed for a day or two. It’s almost too simple to mention this but being acutely aware of the number of cases you’re traveling with is essential, as is counting them on and off the conveyer belt each time. When you’ve been on and off planes for days it becomes increasingly easy for a missing one to escape your notice long enough for you to be a long way away once you realise.

Some airlines are rolling out electronic bag-tags, reducing from days to seconds the time it takes to find an item that ends up in Sydney, Nova Scotia instead of Sydney, Australia. You’ll get a couple of these for free if you fly enough otherwise they’re $50 each. I’d say that’s well worth the cost if it’s attached to a case containing $30,000 worth of equipment.

But your safeguard above all others is insurance. When you’ve done all that you can possibly do to prepare, bad things still happen. Having the right insurance policy is not only a safety net to keep you shooting when it does, it might also be the one thing that keeps your business afloat.

An RFID bag-tag.