In your bag 428, Jasper Rose
A great bag from South London. Jasper is only 15, but he is already shooting with with gusto. Check it out.

So a little about me, My name is Jasper, I’m 15 and I live in South London. I was interested in taking photos from a very young age however only starting getting in to it more seriously at the age of 13 when I started taking photos of derelict buildings which verged from my interest of urban exploration. Until very recently I was shooting everything on digital, the main reason being; I knew nothing about film photography and had the view (albeit the totally incorrect view) that film photography was completely out-date and have no advantages over digital photography.

It was only in the last year or so, after viewing a series of fabulous images captured on film, I decided to buy my first film camera; the wonderful Pentax K1000 (picked it up nice and cheap on eBay) and I absolutely love it! Since then I was given a Lomo LC-A by a friend and love that also. Now I do about half of my shooting on film. For my digital shooting I primaraly use my Pentax K-X. This is a brilliant camera and very suited to street photography being very small yet very powerful.

I have always liked the Pentax system mainly due to the fact that there are so many old yet incredibly well built prime lenses around that use the K mount. Most of these have brilliant image quality and are a steal for street photography. The DSLR bodies offer amazing features for prices that are much lower than that of their competitors, for example the K-5. I would also love to upgrade to some lovely Pentax limiteds when I have some more dosh – In particular the 15mm, 21mm or the 31mm. The limiteds appear, to me, to be the only series of very small, quality, auto-focus primes out there.

About half a year ago I discovered Street photography for the first time after finding out about Vivian Maier and being intrigued by her story and her images. Living in London makes it very convenient to shoot street giving me lots of possible areas to choose. My favourite places to shoot are along the SouthBank, Chinatown in Soho, various London Markets and Leicester Square.

I have found, while shooting street, that being young means I can get away with a lot of things that other wouldn’t be able to. I can take photos of “weird” people that look as if they could react aggressively without the worry of them become too angry (most of the time anyway) and have always found that the “I’m doing an art project for school” excuse can get me out of almost any situation.

So here’s what’s in my bag:

Two rolls of Ilford HP5+ – For general street shooting

1-3 rolls of Lomography 100 Sunset X-Pro – Always fun

1 roll of redscaled Kodacolor 200 – For experimental bits

Galaxy S3 – Really useful

Notebook + pen – “

Chewing gum

Pentax K1000 – My favourite camera

Pentax K-x – one of the best beginner DSLR’s out there IMHO

Lomo Lc-a – Very fun but don’t tend to take many “serious” photos with it

Chinon 50mm f1.7 – Beautiful old standard lens

Hanimex 28mm f2.8 – Lovely old manual focus wide lens

Pentax 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 – It’s the kit lens, however the IQ is surprisingly good, I hope to replace this with the 15mm limited or the 21mm limited when I have some money

DIY Camera Grip – For the KX made from a harmonica box and a cork! Only use it in low light when I need to use slower shutter speeds.

Lens blower – really useful

Lens cloth – “

Gorillapod – Always handy for long exposures (especially with redscale film)

Cable release – Useful for the redscale film which has to be overexposed by 4 or 5 stops!

Hope that was interesting, I’m really trying to find my optimal focal length for street photography so will be changing my bags contents soonish. I’m also hoping to jump in to the world of medium format photography, most likely some sort of TLR – perhaps the Yashica-D.

Thanks! Here is the link to my 500px as well as my email and twitter.

500px: http://500px.com/jasperrose29/sets

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JasperRose29

Thanks for sharing your bag with us Jasper. Good luck finding your optimal focal length, the fun is in the trying.
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