In your bag number 12, Pascal from Germany

I’m Pascal Davíd from Frankfurt/Main in Germany. I do study photography (well, visual communication, which is like modern arts and I put my focus on photography to be precise) at a university of arts and design
and work as barkeeper, organize raves in the open (somewhat similar to block parties) and mess around here and there.
Actualy I never was a photo enthusiastic and even now I rarely take pictures. My working pace is utterly slow and I take my time for projects (it can take months for me to make a single shot – and I rarely ever upload or print a picture).

About my work (and since you love tools, tools I work with):
At the moment I am working on a series about archives and storages together with another photographer and it quite suites my working style:
We visit a hell lot of various places (the bloodbank, old newspaper archives, historical depots of museums [one had over 50 whole boats in there!] and so on) and we take around 3 pictures in 6 hours in there.
For that we’re working with an analogue Hasselblad 500 C/M and a 39MP digital back attached to it. We plan on going on about this series for another year at minimum.

I have quite an attachement to the past and do think a lot about time itself – this heavily influences my work.
As for my own on-going work, basicaly I self process my pictures in an pretty unclean manner to give them this old, worn-down, handcrafted look,
putting a layer of time on them – then I scan them once, and throw the negatives somewhere in a corner in my flat.
The negatives of any picture I shot and once scanned then live on with me, get more and more scratches, “live with me” as objects, being stepped on,
after some time, I eventualy scan them again – and they will have changed. There are various reasons for that, some relate to my past, some to photography itself or the idea of photography that is in peoples head (and the role it plays) – but I guess that’d take it too far.
I have an on-going series about that called “home”, which I only shoot in winter in my hometown, after it snowed and which is only exhibited with my old typewriter (that is used as guestbook on exhibitions)
on which I wrote all my thoughts for years and still do – maybe this gives a hint in what direction I’m heading.
There’s some more projects, all approaching the same thoughts from different direction – and that little glimpse of hope (and some confidence) that some day
they might all connect with each other.
I do feel that right now I’m only doing sketches for something that is to come,
like all my pictures, installations, constructions and doings will some day melt into one piece of work
that bonds all the little pieces together and whatever I do, I do it with that thought in mind.

So, here are the cameras I’m working with:
various Hasselblad cameras, one with a 39MP digital back attached to it, a Mamiya c220, Agfa Isolette I & V, an Agfa Box Camera, a self contructed Pinhole, Canon A1, sometimes Diana, some very old broken Zeiss Ikon midformat camera, a Big Format Camera with a 20MP digital Back attatched to it [Making the lens quite a super-zoom one, only usefull for some particular stuff], a Hasselblad H3D and a Hasselblad H4D, various Minolta Cameras, a Canon 60D and a Nikon d700
I’ll start to work with (analogue) big format cameras this year since I want to start up some series about gentrification in bigger cities and guess I can’t get the images I need with the regular equipment.
I can loan alot of cameras and equipment from my university, so most of the expensive stuff posted here I can have from them,
thats quite a feat we got here and you gotta love it.
We’re currently also rebuilding our old lab, to make it suitable for serious work again, looking forward to that.

As for the bag:
My Camera bag currently is a Violincase
simply because my old bag was too small and the case offers pretty much perfect protection for any kind of equipment (what protects my violin will also keep my cameras safe)
since I described my way of working you can guess, that I don’t need a slingshot for quick camera access – I’m slowpaced and take my time.
And since I don’t have much money to spend on huge Camera bags this will suffice. (50 rolls of film camera bag = I chose the film. simple logic.)

Theres a canon a1, that old zeiss ikon (it’s often replaced by other midformat cameras, it realy varies), my notebook, a gossen sixtomat light metre, some filmrolls, my notebook, a couple of gloves
a pen and a lens for my 60d. usualy the 60d is in there too – but i used it to shoot the picture, so I had to take it out.
Oh and it seems I still have flyers for one of our parties in there.

The cameras in there usualy vary from purpose to purpose, this was still in it from the last tour.

Pascal doesn’t have a Flickr or a Twitter account, but he does have a website.
Check it out

What I really love about this is that it is not a bag in the conventional sense, the violin case is a really nice touch. It is great to see people improvising and doing something different from the norm.

Keep them coming folks, get your bag on Japancamerahunter.com. Send me a hi resolution image of the bag (please make sure it is horizontal) and its contents, with some details about yourself and what you shoot. Oh and don’t forget your contact details (twitter, flickr, tumbler et al).

Cheers
Japancamerahunter