The photographer’s fitness program: hauling your gear around a wedding

 

 

Photography (and indeed, writing about photography) isn't always the most healthy of professions. There's a lot of time spent squinting at monitors, poring over details in Lightroom, and generally remaining stationary at a desk. While at least we're past the rather noxious smelling fumes of the dark room, we could all probably do a bit better about getting up and out. But if you're a working photographer, you probably spend at least a bit of time hauling gear out to a shoot—but how much good does that really do? Well, the folks at FStoppers turned to their Fitbit fitness trackers to find out.

Photographer and writer Jerrit Pruyn used his Fitbit tracker to see how many steps he took while shooting three different weddings, compared to his daily average of 7,000 – 8,000. Over all three events he went at least 10,000 steps for the day, and in one particularly physical event, almost hit the 20,000 mark. That's an impressive number of steps over what you'd do in a normal day.

And if you don't think walking around to a shoot counts as exercise, tell that to your shoulders after hauling a full bag of gear up a hill to get a specific view, through a forest, or around a dance floor for four hours.

So while we may spend much of our time at desks, writing emails, editing photos, and sending invoices, and may, on occasion, survive on a diet of donuts and caffeine—at least we burn a few extra calories when we're out shooting. And hey, isn't that pretty good motivation to go out and shoot more, anyway? You'll improve your skills and your health at the same time.

(via FStoppers)