Most difficult job you've ever been hired for?

This past weekend, I was hired to shoot what was probably the most difficult job I've ever done to date....don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed it and the people were absolutely awesome but it was a technical nightmare. The event was a huge fundraiser put on at a local bowling alley. The lighting was absolutely horrid (very dark and splotchy due to recessed lighting). Not only that, the place was absolutely packed to the gills and I had to organize group shoots of the many contributing companies and people. To top it off, there was really no feasible way to use anything other than an on camera (or on bracket) flash (bounce at your own risk )
I started with one camera and flash on a bracket using the 24-70 shooting everything at ISO 1600 and the largest aperture I could to get the required DOF, dragging the shutter to the point of being uncomfortable to capture at least some ambient and another camera wearing the 85 f1.2. I quickly found that 85 was too long with the huge number of people so I dropped down to the 35 f1.4. I used a combination of bounced flash when I could and direct when the situation called for it. The 35 was used primarily for photos of single people and action shots with the aperture wide open or close to it (fill flash was also used) and the 24-70 was my work horse for everything else.
All in all, it was a very rewarding experience but I admit that it was a bit nerve rattling considering the horrible conditions (and by horrible, I mean technically horrible for photography....everyth​ing else was awesome). Just to give an idea, an exposure of f1.4 at 1/60 and ISO 1600 would still produce an underexposed photo in most of the venue.
I was given at least a small confidence boost throughout the day as I would occasionally catch a photo here and there that was taken with the many point and shoots brought along .
I would love to share a few photos but they haven't been delivered to my client yet so I will hold back sharing them online for now.

Anyone else ever have a difficult job under technically horrible conditions? It would be awesome if you could share your experience and a few photos if you're able

McDonald's cashier. Hands down.

cdifoto wrote in post #9748423
McDonald's cashier. Hands down.

LOL....not quite what I had in mind

Family portraits with 3 toddlers and two dogs. Took 3 and half hours to get 4 usable shots.

Karl Johnston wrote in post #9748528
Family portraits with 3 toddlers and two dogs. Took 3 and half hours to get 4 usable shots.

I assume its because the people moved unlike the skies you are used to?
Mine is a newborn shoot where the mother didnt want the baby naked, the baby didnt want to be photographed(cried constantly even with heat and soft music), all natural light restricted to a bed room with small windows and the sun on the other side of the house. Bad day.

So far a beach wedding near sunset. It wasn't quite dark yet but they wanted water and sun setting in background. I explained shooting into the sun would create silhouettes and if I used flash it would overexpose everything. I even tried to bounce the flash and tried to talk them into positioning different. Their answer? Well you can fix it in Photoshop right? Sigh. I never shoot thinking that. I hate all of the photos. I cringe when I look at them.

[QUOTE=zelseman;974942​3]I assume its because the people moved unlike the skies you are used to?
They move quite fast actually check out some vids on youtube.

Shooting a cardio fitness bootcamp at 5:30 am before the sun rises in a dimly lit parking lot. Thank god they like a lot of heavy pp effects, made some usable but not many. They all look like crap, but the client was thrilled.

What a nightmare to shoot. Once the sun rose it got better, but I'm still not that excited about them.

Link to gallery is here, if you're really curious.

http://www.dawnlightph​otos.com …998_R2xyi#78489​6465_MfCsc

Karl Johnston wrote in post #9748528
Family portraits with 3 toddlers and two dogs. Took 3 and half hours to get 4 usable shots.

Oh yeah....I forgot about toddlers and babies. They can turn just about any photography job into nightmare

+1 on dogs and infants.

any assignment with kids age 6 and younger is difficult, usually the pets are more cooperative than the kids.

I have contracts with various schools to shoot for the yearbook and other school needs. I will do whatever the school administration asks as they are my primary contact and contract holder however it is a pain when i need a team shot and the coaches want absolutely nothing to do with me. it can make arranging a group photo a challenge to say the least

Taking pictures of high school bands all day, 12 hours...My god I don't know how people do this for a living. I take my hat off to them!!! God Bless them....

Climbing a 190 foot radio tower (I'm 53) to take a shot of a helicopter landing on the roof a 17 story building I'd just spent a half a day hanging off of the edge of, to hang the 16 foot long banner I'd printed for the occasion.
Not a fun day. I don't have a real "fear of heights", but I have a certain "respect for gravity" that I can't seem to get past.

Either way, that day was easier than several weeks ago, while at a dance marathon fundraiser at a college, which involved about 22000 watts of music , around 650 screamin' energetic college kids, and a 32 hour workday.
(I'll do it again, happily...have been for the last seven years)

JEC wrote in post #9755728
Climbing a 190 foot radio tower (I'm 53) to take a shot of a helicopter landing on the roof a 17 story building I'd just spent a half a day hanging off of the edge of, to hang the 16 foot long banner I'd printed for the occasion.
Not a fun day. I don't have a real "fear of heights", but I have a certain "respect for gravity" that I can't seem to get past.

Either way, that day was easier than several weeks ago, while at a dance marathon fundraiser at a college, which involved about 22000 watts of music , around 650 screamin' energetic college kids, and a 32 hour workday.
(I'll do it again, happily...have been for the last seven years)

Your a better man than I... But I think the tower sounds like a piece a cake compared to the other.

I shoot pro bono a fashion runway for YMCA Montreal. That was last saturday. The deal was I give them photos for their website and a book they want to publish and I can sell photos to the models.
The place was a cave. That`s all the light you have? Oh no, there is more than that, I`ve been
assured,.
I used 2x50D, one with 24-70 2.8 and the other one with 70-200 2.8 IS, both of them wide open. I used the long lens mainly for backstage photos with the ISO bumped to 2000. Usable ISO.
For the catwalk I used the brick with the nightmare of my life : H2 ISO, which is 12.600. I had to in order to have a good shutter speed for freezing the motion. Imagine how dark it was. Noise is horrible, horrible. I use extensevely Dfine from Nik. I still work on them.
Here you have a link to my Flickr page
http://www.flickr.com/​photos/68911941@N00/

A neuro surgery case many years ago. Film and a very tight area to work in. I documented the entire case but it was extremely difficult because of the color temp of the light and filtering lost a lot of speed.