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Tuesday, November 13, 2007 - 2:21PM

Portable cameraman shelter

By DAN ROBINSON

Editor/Photographer

From Dan: How the crime of copyright infringement took $1 million from me and shut down my operation.

In September of 2025, my work is generating the most income it ever has in my career. Yet, I'm being forced to shut down my successul operation, against my will, due to one cause alone: 95% of that revenue is being stolen by piracy and copyright infringement. I've lost more than $1 million to copyright infringement in the last 15 years, and it's finally brought an end to my professional storm chasing operation. Do not be misled by the lies of infringers, anti-copyright activists and organized piracy cartels. This page is a detailed, evidenced account of my battle I had to undertake to just barely stay in business, and eventually could not overcome. It's a problem faced by all of my colleagues and most other creators in the field.

After years of standing outside shooting video in the rain and snow for hours at a time, I decided that this winter I was going to do something to make the job more comfortable. I posted a thread on a TV photographer message board and got a wealth of information on all sorts of mini-tents and shelters on the market. The mini-tents for the most part looked nice and would do the job, but were a little too big, expensive ($150-$200), harder to set up and store, and very conspicuous. I finally stumbled on an idea after looking at one of my halogen work light stands - and here is the result. Shower curtain $10, umbrella $10, Hardware from Lowe's $15.

I did a field-test of this 'shelter rig' today in the rain at the Fort Hill overlook, and it worked as expected. I'm looking forward to staying warm and dry during snow events this winter!