Whats In my Bag – 2023 updated version .. Think Tank Photo Give AWAY

What’s  In My Bag – 2023 updated version .. Think Tank Photo Give AWAY

New Year  means new travel destinations  and new surprises and  for my first  surprise I have an awesome giveaway in collaboration with my friends over at @thinktankphoto 

We’re giving away The Retrospective Duffel 75 valued at $189.75  

It’s part of The Retrospective Travel Series that features a Weekender, Tote, Laundry Bag, Organizer Pouches, and a trackable Luggage Tag that are handcrafted from a timeless stone-washed cotton canvas that is both soft and durable.

To win this stylish travel bag, simply ‘Like’ and ‘Follow’  @joaocarlosphoto and @thinktankphoto  on  Instagram   

Tag up two friends 

And share my Instagram post! The giveaway ends 7 Feb (Tuesday), 2359

Watch the video what’s in my bag on my YouTube Chanel to find out more. 

My Gear Over the Years

My name is João Carlos. I was born and raised in New York and I’m currently based in Lisbon, Portugal. I also spend a lot of time traveling the world working for advertising agencies, fashion brands, and magazines.

Every day has been a New adventure while working as a visual storyteller in both stills and video for over two decades, It doesn’t seem like long to me, but I guess it has been – especially considering how gear has changed! During this whole time, my kit bag has gone through a series of evolutionary changes to where it is now.

As a young photographer in the late  90’s with no money, I started small. Sold my guitar a Fender Stratocaster to pick up my first SLR, it was a NIKON F65, I had it for maybe six months and quickly discovered that I wanted something else better. By selling this camera and the two kit lenses I picked up a second-hand Canon EOS 5, saving up a couple more months, and picked up a 50mm 1.8 lens.

I worked at some local newspapers while I got my degree at ARCO center for art and communication in Lisbon, then I spent about five years assisting a number of commercial and fashion photographers. At the same time opened my first studio MILKMAN back in 2001. I have always been a firm believer that, you need the proper tools to get the job done and for every job, those tools may be very different from each other. As my career grew and kit bags got larger, I moved up to medium format, a Pentacon Six, it was an old eastern European camera brand, basically a cheap 6×6. What I really wanted was a Hasselblad. Soon I sold all my gear again, the Petacon Six kit, 4 lenses, and a couple of bodies at this point to get a Hasselblad 503cw body only. Lenses I bought second-hand from a photographer I had assisted about 3 months later. It has always been a process of upgrading my gear. During this time I used primarilyElinchrom lights in the studio, I had a kit of three compact strobes and two 3000w packs that I would rent a generator if needed to shoot on location with light.

The switch to digital SLR was the next big evolution to my kit. My first digital camera was the D30, at this point I had made some bad investments, got a lot of debt, and had to sell almost everything. I moved to New York City and picked up my first Canon 5d Mark II on craigslist this was about 2008.

One of the highlights of my photography career came in 2010 when I won the Hasselblad Masters Award, this was awesome because Hasselblad loaned me an H4D40 for what was supposed to be three months, but I had it for a year and then gave it back, unfortunately.  Back in 2017,  I purchased my first FUJIFILM Camera the X-T1, after a week of shooting on a job for a travel magazine I was hooked, I had really fallen in love with FUJIFILM cameras, the amazing quality, ease of use, and compact form factor, plus they are constantly updating their software, all made it very easy for me to fall so hard and so fast. So much so that I sold all of my Canon and Hasselblad gear and now shoot both stills and video entirely on FUJI X and G systems.

Another huge step forward for me was when I purchased Profoto B1 and B2 kits, just the ability to have that type of great quality of light and portability make for an awesome extra to my kit, and then more recently with the Profoto B10  and the Westcott FJ 400.
Below you can find a new what’s in my bag video. 

I didn’t cover this bag in the YouTube video, this is my everyday backpack .. and the stuff in here varies.

For my everyday travel-on-the-go photography, I have a Think Tank Retrospective shoulder back and here I carry my FUJIFILM X100v. It’s an awesome little camera with a fixed 35mm lens. I also have my Fuji Instax printer so when I’m taking street portraits I can give prints directly to the people that I’m taking pictures of. I use a BlackRapid Street Breathe strap. I also always have a 14” Wescott Reflector and again Koylab mini books, moo cards, my mobile device, sunglasses of course, and my JBL wireless headphones because I like to have my music on the go.

 

SKB iSeries Waterproof Laptop Case

On my commercial shoots, I always have a portable digital workstation. My choice is a 13-inch MacBook Pro with two SanDisk SSD 480GB inside. I am also using G technology hard drives and  Sandisk Professional hard drives. I have a three Legget thing tripod to keep my case secure and above the ground. If I’m shooting tethered I will have my Tether Tools cables and lots of memory cards from SanDisk.