IN YOUR BAG: 1723 – Andy M

I am Andy M. and live in Vicksburg, Mississippi, USA. I am a retired geologist and have been taking pictures since the late 1960s. I still use film almost 80 or 90 percent of the time because I like the traditional hardware and prefer the look of genuine black and white film. I have always preferred the most compact version of cameras for their specific format. That means Leica thread mount or M for 35mm, Rolleiflex or Hasselblad  V for 120, and a Tachihara wood camera for 4×5″ sheets.
Being retired, I have time to wander around rural Mississippi, Louisiana, and adjoining states to look for urban or rural decay. Unfortunately, there is plenty of this subject matter in the US South.

Camera bag

Leica IIIC travel kit

During a recent trip to North Carolina and New England, I packed very light, with just my little Leica IIIC. This camera has been in the family since 1949, when my father bought it and the Summitar lens in Guam. It has traveled all through Asia, Europe, and North America and recorded family pictures during the 1950s and ’60s. I took the IIIC to Nepal in 2017, where people were amazed that a 70-year-old camera still worked so well. I had to explain that there was no LED screen for them to look at the pictures. Don Goldberg (DAG camera) recently gave it a complete overhaul

This was my North Carolina travel kit:

Tenba BYOB 7 bag
Leica IIIC body
5cm ƒ/2 Summitar lens
50mm ƒ/2 Jupiter-8 lens
Series VI filters and adapters for the Summitar and Jupiter-8
Yellow and dark yellow direct fit Summitar filters
Gossen Luna-Pro Digital light meter
Misc. cleaning cloths, business cards, cable release
Note pad and pen
A Leica table tripod went into my luggage as well as a spare Luna-Pro meter. Kodak BW400CN and Portra 160 film went in a clear zip-lock bag, which the airport security people could manually inspect (no X-Ray).

Tenba BYOB camera pouch

When I travel by car, I usually pack a tripod and the Hasselblad or 4×5″ camera, but I often tuck the IIIC (or my M2) into the corner of a camera bag.
Thank you for reading. If you want to see some of my urban decay work, please visit:

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Send me a high resolution image of the bag. Optimum size is 1500px across. Please ensure there is a bag in the shot, unless you don’t use one. The more you can write about yourself the better, make it appealing and tell us a story. Snapshots of your gear with a camera phone and no words will not be featured.
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Cheers
JCH