What's In my camera bag? (update)

I tend to switch items in and out of my camera bag many times each year, and here is my latest and greatest for those who like to keep track of this. Please feel free to ask me any questions about what I think of this or that. I am not very proficient at updating my web site or adding content to this blog, so please drop me a line if you need any clarification.

35mm Gear:

Canon 1DsMkIII x 2

Canon 40D

16-35mm f/2.8 L II

24-70mm f/2.8 L

24-105mm f/4 L IS

70-200mm f/2.8 L IS

100-400mm f/4.5 L IS

400mm f/4 DO IS

500mm f/4 L IS

1.4x and 2x teleconverters

Medium Format Panorama Gear:

Fotoman 6x24

180mm

300mm

I carry all of these different setups using Gura Gear camera bags, which will begin shipping in June. I never take all of this equipment out into the field with me, as each safari, workshop or landscape shoot has specific goals and subject matter. For example, my typical Tanzania safari will only have 3 lenses and 2 cameras. But a combination landscape and wildlife trip to Namibia might have panorama film equipment. It just depends. I find that I always have 1 camera with the 24-70mm f/2.8 lens on it at home all of the time for family shots. If you wonder where I get the time to practice blurred panning techniques, just imagine a 2 1/2 year old boy running around the house.

San Francisco LUXE Event at Banana Republic

My friend Stan Jirman just sent me 3 DVD discs of raw files from the LUXE event from a week ago in San Francisco. All images copyright Stan Jirman. A very big Thank You goes out to my friends and family that took the time to come out for the evening.

Waiting in line for my john hancock on their free posters 

...and more waiting.... 

Another angle 

BR took some of the images and had a very nice framed look to them. They also toned them with a blue tint, which wasn't something I had thought of before 

Hey, little kid, want an autograph??!? 

Me, chatting away 

And time to roll up the poster for transport 

You can see Grover Sanschagrin of Photoshelter in the background with his camera, a-la papparazzi 

New Studio Space

I am finally getting settled into my new studio space. As many of you were aware, I used to have a home office in our third bedroom in our house. A stork will be delivering our second child soon (a few weeks, perhaps?), so I needed to move my business out of the house to make room. Initially, I was contemplating a huge addition onto our house for extra space for another bedroom, my studio space and an additional family room. I am glad that I decided against this, as I had no clue how much square footage my business really needs. I was crammed into a 13x14 foot bedroom, which included 2 workstations, tons of camera bags, filing cabinets and an inkjet printer.

Now that I am moved into my new space, I have almost 3 times as much room and can finally spread out a little bit. I am 90% completed with the unpacking, and will be sure to share some photos of the new digs. All that is left is we need to hang some prints and put some track lighting up. I took delivery of my new 44-inch wide printer, which is a new Canon iPF8100 behemoth. Talk about huge! So I have 2 large format printers, the Canon iPF5100 and 8100, I have a preparation area for cutting and assembling print jobs, tons of storage space for paper, a Speed-Mat cutter on the wall, shelving for all of my camera bags, 2 workstations and room to boot. I am looking for inexpensive flat files, so I can print and store larger images. Anybody know of a good source? I know Mayline and Bisley are good brands, but I will be looking at a couple of grand if I go that direction. I have the space for a larger set of drawers, like around 40x50", which will make a nice island for me to evaluate prints on. 

Banana Republic store interior

For those friends that do not live near or have access to a Banana Republic store, here are some quick photographs that I took last week from the BR store near Union Square, San Francisco. I wish I had better images of the large prints in the store windows, but I was unable to make it to the store at night to grab some more images. The daytime images all have intense reflections in them, which is distracting.

 

Banana Republic sightings......

Thank you to all of my friends and family around the globe that have been emailing me photographs from various Banana Republic stores from around the world. Most of the images below have been taken with camera phones, so please excuse the quality.

Eric Cheng, master photographer of all things underwater. Photo courtesy of Eric Cheng.

Shot taken from a moving car, somewhere in the NYC area

Storefront shot of "Giraffe under an Acacia Tree"

Thank you, Art Institute of Philadelphia

 

A few weeks ago I was in Philadelphia to speak about my photography and also my safari and stock business. I had a wonderful time, and thank you to all that attended and laughed at my horrible jokes. Seriously. Here is a quick recap from their web site:

The Art Institute of Philadelphia recap

Back from San Francisco

I was out in San Francisco for a few days, and I want to thank everybody who attended the Banana Republic LUXE private shopping event on Thursday night. It was a great success, and I was amazed at how many people would stand in line for a signed poster of my 'Giraffe Under an Acacia Tree' image. It was great fun. My friends at Gap corportate tell me that there were over 750 people at the 2-hour event, and based on my sore right signing hand, all of those customers bought at least 1 item from the store to receive their free print.

It was a great time, and I will be uploading a few images in the coming days. Since I didn't have a camera with me, I am relying on a few good friends to share them with me. 

Banana Republic Announcement

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Banana Republic has licensed 13 of my black and white images from Africa for their summer 2008 campaign. You can now see some of these images in action on their home page at bananarepublic.com.

Inset that was sent out to over 700,000 BR credit card holders (Front):

 

 Inset that was sent out to over 700,000 BR credit card holders (Back):

 

The photo shoot was photographed by Tom Munro, and took place at Bayfront Park, Miami. The ad agency is AR in New York City. Barbara Berger and Noah Mills were the models. Some of my images were printed up to 15x30 feet and placed as backdrops for the shoot. The resulting photographs are central to the summer 2008 Banana Republic catalog, as well as marketing material, The Gap, Inc annual report and other internal documents.

After the photo shoot was completed, I was contacted to see if I was interested in licensing additional images for their in-store art program. You bet. I am flattered to have some of my favorite photographs placed in 450 stores around the world. The offical opening of the summer season is apparently May 22, however you might be able to see the images in the stores before the 22nd.

You can see the thirteen images here. 

I will be attenting one of the LUXE events in a few weeks for the opening of the summer 2008 season, and I plan on coming back with some photographs from the evening.