In your bag 414, Joe Dammel
Todays bag is wonderfully simple and straightforward, a street portrait bag with no frills. Joe shares his bag with us all the way from Minneapolis. Come and have a look.

My name is Joe Dammel, I’m a photographer/law student living in Minneapolis, Minnesota (Land of Prince, 10,000 Lakes, and bitter cold!). When I’m not studying, I like to take photographs on vintage analog cameras! There’s nothing like the process of analog photography and I hope to get into large format sometime in the near-ish future.

My interest in photography began at an early age; one of my favorite photos of all time was taken at sunset at the family cabin in Canada on a disposable camera. Something magic was unlocked when I realized all of the wonderful moments I could capture on film. In high school, I used my dad’s Pentax Super Program with its beautiful 50mm f1.4 kit lens (so sorry I sold the lens, it was great). I came back to film photography about 2 years ago with a 35mm Holga after using a few “vintage” iPhone apps and realizing that it’s way more fulfilling to shoot vintage cameras, not cell phones with “vintage” filters.

Here’s my bag; I usually have to make some choices when I take it out on the street. One of my favorite genres is street portraiture, so it’s best to carry just as little as you need since most of my time is spent wandering aimlessly, waiting for my courage to build up enough to ask for a portrait!

Bag: Crumpler 6 Million Dollar Home (this bag is the perfect size for carrying cameras without looking like it)

Cameras:

Nikon F100 (this is my do-everything camera; I love it. It just feels like a camera should in the hands);

Nikon FE (my uncle gave me this recently, it didn’t work, but I took it to an old man outside of town who worked his mechanical magic on it and now it’s as good as new; a truly legendary piece of equipment and a statement of mechanical design)

Hasselblad 500 C/M (after screwing around with an old, beat up Mamiya 645 1000s, which had a  lovely 80mm 1.9 lens but didn’t work 50% of the time, I decided to make the move to Hasselblad. I couldn’t be happier that I did!)

Lenses:

Nikon Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AF-D (on the F100; a thrifty-fifty; does the job and autofocuses, what will they think of next?!)

Nikon Nikkor 105mm f/2.5 AI (on the FE; the famous portrait lens purportedly used by Steve McCurry for the Afghan Girl photograph; it’s sharp, does lovely things out of focus, and is fairly compact)

Nikon Nikkor 28mm f/3.5 AI (below; a cheap 28mm; still getting used to this focal length, but the lens is buttery smooth mechanical perfection)

Zeiss Planar 80mm f/2.8 C T* (on the Hasselblad; the standard lens and a great all-around focal length; so sharp and micro-contrasty)

Accessories:

Lens hoods for the Nikons (because you can never go wrong there for flare and protection against bumps)

Proshade for the Hasselblad (neat because you can move the shade bellows to accomodate different focal lengths; it also has a 10-stop ND Wratten filter in the little filter holder for when I want to do long exposure)

Polaroid Back for the Hasselblad (instant gratification)

Hard Drive Case with Wratten Filter case, yellow B50 filter, and 16mm extension tube for the Hasselblad

Moleskine with Buy Film Not Megapixels sticker (for those times when you need to look like a hipster to ward off n’er-do-wells!

Film:

Acros for long exposure and sunny days

Ilford HP5+ for everything else

Sites:

http://abrandnewminneapolis.tumblr.com/
http://www.facebook.com/DammelPhotographicWorks
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jadammel/

Thanks Bellamy, keep up the great work!
Joe

Thanks for sharing your bag with us Joe. I love the hasselblad setup, perfect for portraits.
Check out the links and make sure you come and comment.

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