In your bag 819, Kacper Konstanczak
I may be away, but the world keeps turning and bags need showing. but today it is not just a bag, but a jacket too. Come and have a look.

Greetings to the bag lovers all over the World!

Just a starting note: I discovered this blog just only two weeks ago during my hunt for film cases. I think I’ve became a bit addicted, going through all the submissions to date. I love to read the stories and to see how diverse we, photographers, are. Keep on showing it people!

Back to myself and my bag though.
My name is Kacper Konstanczak and I’m a Polish amateur photographer based in London.

My journey through photography started when I met a beautiful girl with a truly beautiful, artistic soul, both of which I intended to capture making my first (unsuccessful) attempts in nude photography. As time went on, I continued to develop the craft in order to do it better, still expanding my views as an amateur photographer. Girlfriends like this one don’t normally last long and so didn’t she. We’ve got married!

A friend of mine, a very respected Polish photographer – Pawel Kosicki – mentioned once that lugging your gear in a bag is among the easiest ways of bringing home a spine-pain instead of photographs.  Effectively, it caused me a real problem with this post because  as a photographer, I had continued to live split lives since.  None of these involves using bags at all…

The first, ‘creational’, with use of strobes and all the heavy lighting equipment, is still ruled by DSLRs – Fuji/Nikon, which I keep in a case. The second, ‘reactional’, which includes street-ish photography, demanded by its nature is covered by the content of the picture. And so it goes:
1: Canvas  jacket or a vest top to keep me warm and dry, there’s nothing that can ruin your photo day as quickly as feeling cold.
2: Cameras, obviously – Two Minoltas X-500. Not very popular, but well built and reliable bodies. They offer full manual operation, stellar viewfinder and precise metering. Everything I need. Attached are always Rokkors 2.8/28mm and 1.4/50mm. Like all the Rokkors, fantastic performers. If, for any reason, I only carry one of them, I mount on the famous Rokkor 1.8/35mm glass.
3: Power winder – in case I expect to take a sequence of pictures, but normally it stays in my pocket
4: Films. I don’t normally shoot more than 5-10 images a day and therefore don’t need to haul heaps of rolls on me. However, in case any camera run out, I carry a Rollei dual pack with a roll of b/w and colour negative. The silver one is always b/w and hence the yellow filter.
5: Rokkor 2.8/135. Small lens that rarely leaves the bag. I keep it close in case I needed to compress the perspective a bit
6: Amazon Kindle to keep me occupied when light is just not right
7: Fossil waxed canvas bag to keep all the rest (wallet, small bottle of water, phone etc.)

I’ve tried my luck with rangefinders, but somehow wasn’t able to accept parallax and its implications. I thank god for it, as it has saved me lots of money as despite uber quality of Rokkor glass, Minolta gear costs close to nothing!

And that’s pretty much it!
If interested, feel free to visit my website at www.kacperkon.com,
Or my blog at www.glanceonsilver.blogspot.com

Cheers
Kacper

Thanks for sharing your bag and your jacket, Kacper. Very cool to see the X-500’s being shot.
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. Please understand that there is a long wait now as there is a backlog of submissions. Not all make the cut, so make sure yours is funny/interesting/quirky. And please make sure the shot is of good quality, as the ones that are not do not go up.

Cheers
Japancamerahunter