Photographer's Van!

Travel and Event photographer Ian Brierley finally managed to give us a quick tour of his magnificent photo van, just before boarding the overnight ferry to the continent. It's a Vauxhall Movano 2.8L diesel, with long wheelbase and medium high roof. Ian has fitted it with an extra 24V 70Amp alternator. The second alternator feeds a pair of 12V truck batteries, connected in series to yield 24V. This is converted to mains rated power via a 24V inverter. Ian uses 24V because he found 12V couldn't run his eventing set up for more than two hours. With his 24V system, even when the batteries do eventually run down, he can quickly charge them up again from his mighty 70Amp alternator, just by running the engine. His kit consists of a SONY UP-DR150 fast event printer, a Kodak 1400 portrait printer, an Epson 2100 inkjet and a purpose built PC with 17" widescreen and Photoshop. This is all housed in fitted flight-cases bolted into his van to make a digital editing suite. The van has hot running water, calor gas, a shower, sleeping accomodation and chemical toilet. It qualifies as a motorhome for most purposes. When I saw it there was a Kawasaki XR750 sports bike in the back (Ian usually keeps a quad bike there!) and a bicycle stored in a rack on the back door. Ian will soon be adding a telescopic camera boom to the van for aerial shots. He'll be available to shoot events all winter round, anywhere in the world. Contact him via his website www.nowpix.co.uk (He'll be returning to give a seminar at www.photomart.co.uk in March 2008).