Macgyvering Photo Gear

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Wide angle shot of aquatic birds in the Pantanal of Brazil
PHOTO © Daniel De Granville, 2004

Before you ask, the title of this article comes from the 1980’s TV character MacGyver, who was very inventive and could fix a space shuttle’s engine using a rubber band and a broken toothpick. The Brazilian word which could better describe the act of macgyvering things is “gambiarra”. By what I have searched and asked, there is no real or official equivalent of “gambiarra” in English – maybe “improvising” could be it, but the concept behind that specific term goes beyond this.

All of the above is just an introduction to today’s subject: photo equipment is extremely expensive and sometimes very hard to find in Brazil, as well as in other countries. If you want some specific device you must import it, which means an extra 70% (at least) in taxes. In other words, a photographer buying any equipment in Brazil will pay about twice the average US street price.

Considering the average income down here, usually the only viable solution for us is the famous DIY (do-it-yourself) approach – in other words, being creative. I have been doing a lot of this for nature recording equipment, one of my hobbies during my spare time, and now I am planning to work on a new remote shooting device to capture images similar to the one which illustrates this article (and is the cover for this month’s issue of Brazil’s main publication about birds).

Recording bird songs with a $2 "parabolic reflector"
PHOTO © Tietta Pivatto, 2005

During my assignments with the National Geographic as a field assistant (posts about this coming soon!), every now and then we created things with what we had in the middle of nowhere, so in those moments my macgyvering (or “gambiarra, if you prefer) skills were extremely helpful! I guess this is very much what nature photography is about.

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