Portable Music Station for Photoshoots

Along with the booze and the girls, having good music at your photoshoot can help immensely. In the past I’ve used phones with speakers, portable radios, boomboxes and laptops but I’ve never found a dedicated setup that could fit in my camera bag until now.

The Mp3 Player

I wanted  an mp3 player that was cheap, simple, didn’t have planned obsolescence and didn’t require iTunes to work (aka “not an iPod”) . I still have one of the early Creative Lab’s MUVO mp3 players that still works to this day on one simple AAA battery. On the other hand, my stylish iPod with its irreplaceable * battery is dead and does a quite commendable job as a paper-weight.

Comes the SanDisk Sansa m230. It works on a single AAA battery, functions as an USB external drive for music transfer, it’s light and it’s  cheap (25$ on Amazon, 50$ for the 2 gb version). It only has 512mb but that’s more than enough for a photoshoot.  Of course you could also substitute this for more modern mp3 player and that’s fine.

The Speaker

Altec Lansing iM-237 Speaker . Small enough, good enough and cheap enough ($28 on Amazon) . Any good home stereo system could beat its ass but that’s not the point. This thing runs on 3 AAA batteries and fits on a lens compartment in my camera bag. It has big sound for such a small package. It’s better than most laptop speakers.

The Music

You’re shooting young, beautiful, fashionable models. You don’t want to be blasting Simon and Garfunkel’s Sound of Silence no matter how much you love that song (I do). Pick something with upbeat! I suggest anything from Gorrilaz or Lady Gaga. Papa…paparazzi?

Rock on!

 

* Yes I know, I could buy a battery on Ebay and replace it myself. I did and it worked… for a year.