I spent the last few days shooting in NYC. I love going there, but I hate dragging all the equipment around with me. This trip was worse than usual on the crap-I-had-to-drag-around front. I brought a light kit, two cameras, clothes, a tripod, a bag of peripherals and a laptop. So I had to take the train with a cart piled high with gear, a backpack and a tripod over my shoulder. Where are the sherpas when you need them?

Wednesday I met up with Erin, who works for Legal Momentum, a non profit which deals mostly with women's issues. We drove out to Queens to meet with a woman who works as an electrician and teaches at a local vocational high school. We interviewed her in the classroom and followed her around as she helped the students. The next stop was the Legal Momentum office in Manhattan. It was a huge challenge trying to find a parking spot. Eventually we gave up and paid $26(!) to park in a lot for three hours. I filmed them having a fake staff meeting and interviewed several of them about the organization.

When the shoot was over, I got a call from my office saying that I had to dress up for my shoot at the New York Stock Exchange the next day. Here's the thing, I'm a cameraman. I never have to dress up. I barely have any fancy clothes at home and I certainly didn't bring any of them to New York. So I called my friend Aaron and asked about the dress code at the NYSE. He said that he's always worn jeans when shooting there. I didn't want to take a chance, so I went clothes shopping. Too bad the stores were all closed by the time I started. I ended up going out to Brooklyn to meet Aaron at a bar and borrow a sport-coat from him. Thursday I went down to the NYSE at 8am. I wore the sport-coat and jeans and no one said a word.

I was there to shoot more B-roll to sell through Getty Images. My company has been making a few thousand dollars a month off some old standard definition footage, so we decided to get some new shots in HD. I wasn't suppose to be there until 9:00, but I arrived early because I knew it would take awhile to get through security. By 9:00 I was on a balcony overlooking the trading floor. They let me stay until 9:45, way longer than I expected. I got some great footage that I'm sure will pay my salary for years to come.

After leaving the stock exchange, I walked up to city hall and the courthouse. There wasn't much to shoot over there, so I set up on the Brooklyn Bridge and got some shots of women for the Legal Momentum video. Given the subject of the video it was perfectly acceptable to focus on women, but it still felt creepy.

I met Aaron at the United Nations building for lunch. It was actually harder to get in there than it was to get into the NYSE. Aaron had to carry the gear, because he has a "resident journalist" pass. I had some soup from the horrible little UN cafe and hung out with Sherwin the SABC correspondent, before heading back to Penn Station to catch my train home.