In your bag number 179, Barthelemy Longueville
Wait, we have another bag from China today, although this one comes from Frenchman Barthelemy. He has a pretty impressive setup, so let’s see what is inside.

Hi, I’am Barthelemy, I’m French and currently living in Shanghai

I am a regular reader of this blog and its section “In your bag”. Far from being an ostentatious gear show, it’s an original and intimate way to discover new photographers and their approach to photography.
Thanks Bellamy to let me participate today

A few words about what I like in photography; this is for me a selfish attempts to preserve specific streams of feelings and the process of photography is somehow more important than the final print.
I like small discoveries, encounters at the corner of my street, meeting strangers, entering in their life the time of a discussion and a photograph; an analog photograph as I have a passionate relationship with film grain. I am working in parallel on everlasting projects, who knows when they will be finished ! My friends claim that my photography is like a time travelling machine as I take sometimes few years to release some photos. Hopefully, I try to published some extracts, work in progress or other short stories on the web or during exhibitions.

After a long period with Nikon (FM2 and FE2), I use mainly rangefinders; here is what is in my bag today :
[1] Safrotto Canvas Camera bag
Kind of cheap but strong – This is the bag I use when I am travelling
and need to carry more than one camera or lens; otherwise most of the
time I put films in my pockets and carry the camera on my shoulder.

[2] Mamiya 7II with Mamiya N 1:4.5 f=43mm L with hood and external viewfinder
This camera with this lens is like a 1980 Formula one: 1000 horsepower
and no breaks, hard to tame but simply amazing!

[3] Zeiss Ikon ZM – Limited edition with Leica Summicron-M 1:2/35
(Silver, “Version 4”) with hood This combo is like an extension of my
eye, if I had to choose, this would be the camera/lens I would keep.

[4] Konica M-Hexanon Lens 1:1.2/50 Limited edition with hood and leather bag
For some portraits or night photography, this is a great lens (i have
the paired body, the hexar limited, but not in this bag)

[5] Sekonic L-308DC
Light and reliable

[6] Film rolls :
I use to shoot mainly Kodak TriX but they are hard to find in Shanghai
now, so I switched temporarily to ILFORD HP5+ in 120 and 135 (cheap as
bulk loaded by the my favourite shop). I shoot also in colour; todays’
choice is Kodak portra 400 in 135

[7] Other but essential
– A Kowon J3 (digital portable music player with the best sound ever)
– A big unbranded cleaning tissue for bodies and one Zeiss for lens +
cleaning pen/brush
– LR44 batteries (For the Zeiss) + 4LR44 battery (For the Mamiya)
– A Notebook – 200 pages and three black pens, 0.3, 0.7 and 1.0 mm
– A compass as sun is not always visible in China
– A business card holder with my business cards from my real job and
from BOP collective (read bellow)
– A plastic magnifier lens (business card format), it has no weight
and can be useful
– one roll of adhesive tape (a must when I shoot with Shanghai GP3
film => I offer one beer in shanghai to the first who tells us why in
the comments)
– A small mirror (i found this in my jeans pocket after a loooong
night and kept it because I have no idea where it came from. I am glad
I found its usage today for this “in-my-bag photo” as it gives a cool
Flemish painting effect => I offer another beer in shanghai to the
first one who finds the painting I am referring to – hint: this is
about a wedding)

You can visit http://www.shadowgraphy.org if you want to discover my photographs in a kind of structured way (otherwise, I am on flickr, http://www.flickr.com/photos/longwei66/

At last, I co-founded the “infamous”, B.O.P. collective :
http://www.bop-photolab.org/

We promote a certain approach of photography in relation to the punk mantra DIY “Do It Yourself”. We are (almost all) self taught photographers. And we like the slowness of the film photography: when one shoots, goes home, unloads one’s camera, waits until it is dark, goes to one’s blacktaped bathroom to develop the negatives, gets out of the bathroom with head spinning from the fumes of the chemicals, waits until the negatives are dry and then, only then, discovers the harvest of the past days or weeks or months… BOP offers each member virtual space for their online portfolio. This space is very limited and it is hard to put together a BOP exhibition. There are many criteria amongst which coherence is the most important in the BOP philosophy. Check out our news for our next exhibitions and publications !

Thanks Barthelemy for sharing your bag and your thoughts on photography. It is great to learn about the B.O.P. Collective. Please check out the links and make sure you comment as always.

Keep them coming folks, we need more submissions, so 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). Send the bag shots here.
Cheers
Japancamerahunter