Gear Choice for Quiapo Festival

Covering the country's largest religious procession had it's own challenges. One of my objectives for this project was to be in the crowd, to take pictures of people struggling to get close to the statue of Jesus of Nazareth. I had seen pictures of festival beforehand and knew I would be in a crush of people. I've also heard of people fainting, getting injured and even dying during the procession so I knew I had to have the proper gear with me. My trusty Lowepro Pro Mag 2 would not do, it being a sling / shoulder bag presented me with the real possibility of getting hung up. I could see the headlines now "Photographer, strangled by his own camera bag".

So I decided to take my old Toploader 75Aw but attached to a chest rig. This way my gear was always in front of me with no sticky fingers probing the contents. An added benefit which I would find out later was that it served as a buffer between me and the next guy when the pushing started, giving my camera a safe place to be (basically on top of it).

I wasn't too worried about the camera itself. A Canon 30D which has more than depreciated itself over and over again, I was secretly hoping it would fall apart and give me a reason to upgrade. And I had no illusions of changing lenses in the middle of the crowd, I'd stick to one when things started getting dicey.

So I brought my 10-20mm, 100-300mm and my general 17-70mm lens (all Sigma lenses). I generally want all three lenses with me wherever I go. The toploader fit my long lens and a smaller lens in the outer pocket. My camera with the other lens would be in my hands at all times.

Other preparations included making sure you didn't have anything you didn't want to lose in your pockets, it was a religious festival but as they say "Chance favors the prepared".