Camera wise, I’d be travelling reasonably light. I’d packed two DSLR camera bodies – my trusty Nikon D4 (still a seriously great camera for low-light shooting) and a Nikon D850 as a backup. Complimenting these would be a range of lens to cover the focus lengths I’d likely need to cover all angles (so to speak) – a Nikon 16-35mm (great for those ultra-wide shots), a Nikon 24-70mm (the work horse of any event photographer) and, for longer reach, a Nikon 70-200mm.

Various flash guns were packed too – a couple of Godox V1 speed lights (I always carry a second just in case) and a Godox AD200 Pro 200w remote flash for those moments when I need a bit more off-camera power. A couple of radio flash triggers (again, redundancy) to trigger them came along for the ride also.

Getting a shooting brief detailing the client’s expectations is essential – after all, you need to understand what they’re hoping to get from the shoot, right? For Rebreather Forum 4, M2 and I divided my time into five days. The first day would be spent on a boat shooting images of rebreather divers enjoying Malta’s amazing wreck diving whilst day two would see me shooting rebreather try dives at Malta’s Olympic-sized National Pool located at the Tal-Qroqq Sports Complex near Valletta.

For the remaining three days, I’d be running around the Valletta campus of the University of Malta shooting the main event – Rebreather Forum 4. Each day would bring its own unique challenges which all had to be accounted for by taking the right kit for the job – extra lighting, reflectors and so on. Those checklists certainly came in handy to ensure everything was packed.

In a somewhat fortunate twist of fate, I wouldn’t be travelling to Malta alone. My wife Georgina had been actively involved in many of the same diving events I’d worked on and had become a bit of a dab-hand at keeping such events from descending into logistical chaos.

She was a key member of the EUROTEK team (the so-called ‘Minions’ as we affectionately called them) and is also a regular face manning the front desk at the Go Diving Show here in the UK. Understanding that a steady and reliable pair of hands is a valuable asset at any event, M2 had cunningly drafted her in to join the event’s happy band of willing volunteers.

Day two saw me up at the crack of dawn to head over to the Tal-Qroqq Sports Complex on the outskirts of Valletta to shoot images of the rebreather try dives. One of the great joys of travelling around Malta is the local taxi service. Malta really has embraced the wonders of smart phones with its own Uber-esque app-driven taxi services. Just fire up Bolt or eCabs, type in where you want to go and a cab will be with you in a matter of minutes. It’s all jolly convenient and makes jumping between shooting locations a real joy. Oh and you get the pleasure of chin-wagging with a local for a few minutes – one taxi driver went to great lengths to tell me about how Malta was very popular with scuba divers. Who knew, eh?

Arriving at the Sports Complex pool, try dives were already in full swing with many of the rebreather manufacturers giving Forum attendees the opportunity to take their units for a dive in the Olympic-sized swimming pool. In retrospect, I should probably have dressed in something more water-proof as it became immediately obvious that my biggest challenge would simply be staying dry. My camera gear was fine – it’s used to the abuse - but anything below the knees soon got very wet.

The lighting conditions were quite challenging too – the strong Maltese sun created harsh shadows which I’d normally overcome with either a reflector or an ND filter combined with high-speed fill-flash but the lack of a lighting assistant made this tricky. Georgina had already been press-ganged into the far more urgent task of helping to set up the registration desk for the start of the event. After her experience on the boat the day before, I could understand why she wanted to stay away from water for at least one day.

With the first two days of shooting in the bag, day one of Rebreather Forum 4 had finally arrived. Unlike other diving events I’d covered, Rebreather Forum 4 had one thing going for it that would make my life a whole lot easier – all the presentations would take place in just one room.

Events like EUROTEK and the Go Diving Show tend to have multiple talks all going on at the same time, requiring me to dart between several rooms to ensure I covered them all. That, at least, is always the plan but the more talks running simultaneously, the more chance you have of missing one. The trick is to prioritise – always have a hit list agreed in advance with the client of shots that are an absolute must. For Rebreather Forum, this wasn’t going to be a problem - I could guarantee to shoot every speaker.

The first concern of any event photographer is always the lighting in the room. Fortunately, I’d been able to liaise with the venue to ensure that the lighting would allow me to capture clean, clear shots of the speakers. Some events are infinitely better at this than others – there’s nothing more challenging than shooting a speaker who is stood in front of a very bright video wall with no key lights on them. All you’re going to get is a silhouette against a very pretty video backdrop.

In these cases, you’re forced to use flash photography – something I always try to avoid as it can disturb both the speaker and the audience. Thankfully the wonderful folk at the University of Malta had this covered – the speakers would not only be illuminated throughout by a pair of lovely flagged key lights mounted on the ceiling, but they’d also be rooted in the same spot by microphones attached to the on-stage lectern.

Like everything in life, capturing such moments comes at a price. The reality is that shooting any event is utterly exhausting. My poor feet really paid the price for five days of frantic activity – each evening, I’d treat them to a long soak in steaming hot water.

Now I’m normally a shower type of guy but my feet demanded nothing less than a full-on soak in the closest thing I could find to a Star Wars Bacta tank – the Hotel bath. Thankfully the bath tubs in the Grand Hotel Excelsior were some of the best I’ve ever encountered in a hotel – deep, spacious and thoroughly relaxing. Whilst I sadly wasn’t diving on this trip, I suspect they’d be darned good for rinsing dive gear post trip too. Not that I ever abuse the bathing facilities in a 5-star hotel. No siree.

Pain and suffering lower extremities aside, working an event like Rebreather Forum 4 was an experience like no other. For a rebreather-diving, shutter monkey like myself, it’s the pinnacle of photo gigs – a golden ticket that I certainly won’t forget for many years to come.

Packed full of amazing moments surrounded by the great and good of all things rebreather diving on a magical Mediterranean island steeped in a deep richness of history, it’s hard not to appreciate just how great an experience it all really was. Truly great diving events don’t come along very often but Rebreather Forum 4 certainly fitted the bill. I, for one, feel truly blessed to have been part of it.