Wrapped camera
REUTERS/Jo Yong-Hak
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We’ve all had the occasional situation where things have been spilled, dropped, smeared, or otherwise marred our perfectly good cameras — but what could possibly require covering your entire camera in plastic wrap like that? Reuters photographer Jo Yong-Hak covered the Boryeong Mud Festival this year — an annual weeklong summer celebration that involves millions of people visiting a mud-covered beach for sliding, wrestling, massages, competitions, and generally awesome summertime fun.

The festival takes place on Daecheon beach in Boryeong,120 miles southwest of Seoul, and the mud is renowned for being medicinal — though the celebration is as much about fun as it is health.

Foreign visitors play with mud during the 14th Boryeong Mud Festival at Daecheon beach in Boryeong, about 190 km (118 miles) southwest of Seoul, July 17, 2011. Around 2 to 3 million domestic and international tourists visit the beach during the festival each year to enjoy mud activities such as mud slides, mud wrestling and mud massages. The festival runs from July 16-24 this year.  REUTERS/Jo Yong-Hak (SOUTH KOREA - Tags: SOCIETY IMAGES OF THE DAY TRAVEL)

Foreign visitors play with mud during the 14th Boryeong Mud Festival at Daecheon beach in Boryeong

Foreign visitors play with mud during the 14th Boryeong Mud Festival at Daecheon beach in Boryeong, about 190 km (118 miles) southwest of Seoul, July 17, 2011. Around 2 to 3 million domestic and international tourists visit the beach during the festival each year to enjoy mud activities such as mud slides, mud wrestling and mud massages. The festival runs from July 16-24 this year. REUTERS/Jo Yong-Hak (SOUTH KOREA – Tags: SOCIETY IMAGES OF THE DAY TRAVEL)

As much fun as this is for people, high end camera gear doesn’t take so kindly to mud flying in all directions, so Jo Yong-Hak did the only thing practical — wrapping all the gear in plastic wrap. It won’t protect the glass of your lens from getting smeared, but it’ll stop the mud from getting all through the workings of your precious gears.

Though I can’t imagine changing settings through all that plastic is particularly fun. But, it’s nice to see that even photogs at the highest level sometimes resort to DIY solutions like this to get the shot.