The Bench
For years, I’ve had an office on the second floor where I did all my photography-based work. As I’ve grown in my career, though, I’ve acquired additional gear that has started collecting on other floors, namely the finished basement. A cart, a couple of hard cases for my commonly used kit, studio lights, backdrops, c-stands, different sized bags, straps, etc. Lugging all of this stuff up to the office doesn’t make sense since it’s regularly going back out the door through the basement, so I’ve been storing it in a tidy corner despite the limited space.
I never liked that I didn’t have all of it consolidated. It felt messy and spread out even though I did my best to keep it contained. I value intentionality and defined spaces, and keeping half my stuff in a corner never felt good despite it being necessary.
So, I built a bench with storage beneath to keep everything that’s not a camera in the same place. It’s still in roughly the same corner, but now it’s organized in an intentional way. The bench, with loads of good lighting, offers a large surface area to work on the computer, clean sensors and camera bodies, and compile all the small tools required for specific photo-related tasks. It provides all the same duties and functionality as my workshop around the corner minus the power tools and saw dust.
When I need to build a load out for a job, I throw the case up on the bench directly under the overhead light and put together what I need. When I come home, I pop the memory card(s) out of the camera, slot the batteries on their chargers, and take only the photos upstairs to my office for processing. Everything is streamlined, organized, and optimized for my workflow.