In your bag No: 1441, Giovanni Agrò
Giovanni is a dentist, but there is nothing scary about his bag (for those of you who have a fear of the dentist). Instead it is stuffed to the gills with loads of great camera gear. Check it out.
I’m Giovanni 29yo and live in Turin (Italy) but I come from an ancient city in Sicily, Racalmuto, that some of you may remember for the work of Magnum photographer Ferdinando Scianna.
My passion for photography began with my dad and his Olympus is100 (the tank!!!) that i started to use as soon as I became strong enough to handle it and from that time I’ve always carry a camera with me!
The street photography love began during the university, in Palermo, after the finding of an old Fujica STX-1 in a drawer, where all my family pictures are stored…it was a real thunderbolt when I touched it for the first time! I was craving to use it, so i started to carry it around everywhere to shoot everything that i found interesting! That city is so full of history and people and so many thing happen in the same time that is the Mecca for an Italian street photographer and for everyone can appreciate the photography greatness of a place that never sleep from centuries!
After university I moved to Turin to continue my study (I’m a scary dentist!) but here I’ve also start to go deep into photography, following Photography classes and workshops where a learn a lot about the history and about the Masters. I fall in love with the Vivian Mayers hidden work and with the Italian Gianni Berengo Gardin, a monster of his time also if not so famous abroad.
Now I spend my free time walking around, discovering this new city, often a take photos during my commute; here a see people that looks “normal” comparing whit the melting pot that Palermo was but through them try to understand this place.
But now let’s talk about the bag, i use to carry always a camera with me to do some instant street photography on the move but with my job it become also a professional need to record all my clinical cases.
The bag is a TENBA DNA 13, a wonderful bag that comes whit a giant detachable case for all the stuff you need, but sincerely I barely never use it! The bag is strong enough also without it, great to carry everywhere, light and stable on your side.
I took always different cameras with me but my new Olympus OMD-EM10 MKII is always inside , i use it to take clinical shoot and on street of course; it’s a wonderful camera, easy to use, feather light and incredible fast! Think that the MFT system really suits for me and for the street in general, there are a lot of lenses that you can choose and of every price and quality ( dream the 25mm f1.4 panaleica), it’s compact and cheap!
A couple of Yashica T-AF, the first one founded in the same drawer of the Fujica during a conversation with my dad and after a counseling session with Bellamy, I decided to start to use it ; the second one bought for nothing in a market. I Always load the first one with ILFORD HP5 and the second one with Kodak GOLD 200, i don’t know if it is possible but a think that they perform very different and this matched seems to work pretty good.
Sony RX100, used for the shot, love the RX100 series and honestly say, I can do all the job only with that little monster but i suffer of GAS in a moderate level…usually i took it in my pocket never in the bag, it’s always ready to shot, hyperlocal setting memorized and i shot it without any thinking or even looking! Something likes me, I approach it and “click” the work is done!
What about lenses, I normally use a Panasonic 25mm f1.7, it’s a easy lens to use, the sharpness is pretty good but it has a bit of distortion when wide open but nothing terrible…it’s always on the Oly and she seems to like her!
Inherited from the Fujica the X-Fujinon 55mm f2.2 and the Maigon 28-85mm f3.5-4.5 that i use on the olympus tanks to a Kiwiphotos adapter, use the 55 for street portraits and it gives me a very nice bokeh from the hell and incredibly but true use the last for my macro clinical shot…my office as a big windows that looks to the Alps and there i don’t need angular flash or macro lights!
I normally use two kind of Films, usually prefer ILFORD HP5, but sincerely love the cheap feeling of the kodak GOLD 200
What else? An iPad, my iPod shuffle, spare batteries and sd cards, cleaning kit, Star Wars Moleskine to take note of appointments and nice place and the TENBA weather-wrap, Huawei Mate 7 for hyperlocal calculation and remote control…The “I love you” post-it of my girlfriend Adriana who always helps me when she can.
Hope you enjoy the bag, I’m starting to scan as much as possible my old film archive but for now some shot are on my Instagram https://www.instagram.com/iodio87/
Thanks for sharing your bag with us, Giovanni. What about the doll keychain? What’s the story there?
Check out the links and please come and comment.
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