For the past ten months, my and my family’s non-clothing and non-toiletries life has completely lived inside a Think Tank camera bag and it will do so for another 50 days. I took the opportunity this afternoon to do a quick audit, headcount, and make sure everything I was carrying was necessary, and inspired by the Hemispheric Views podcast segment ‘Rate my desk’ I thought I would submit my ‘desk away from home’ to the internets.

All of our life’s possessions that aren’t our actual home and the furniture in that home required for it to be on Airbnb, lives in our two July ‘Checked Plus’ bags, and two Dagne Dover bags, plus a Phil & Teds travel cot and a Baby Jogger travel pram, and this Think Tank Streetwalker camera bag pictured below.

The reason for the Think Tank Streetwalker bag is that it’s unique in being a carry bag, a backpack, and a roller bag. It’s the Optimus Prime of camera bags.

I’ll guess a few of the questions “What is that?!":

  • Panic Playdate
  • photocopies of passports and actual passports
  • parfum
  • new and identical backup sunglasses because the last place you want to be is in a strange new land without your favourite sunglasses
  • octopus straps, you never know when you’ll need to strap something to something (same goes for the tape)
  • USB-C dock with an ethernet port, because sometimes you just need to plug the damn thing in to get internet
  • my eldest daughter’s camera (Nikon Coolpix childproof potato camera)
  • my wife’s camera (Fuji X-S10 with a 27mm)
  • my splurge camera purchase in Paris (Leica Z2X which means 2x zoom, film camera)
  • my flying camera (DJI Mavic 3)
  • my camera (Canon EOS R5)
  • Native Union universal cable
  • supporters gift from the Wedding Photo Hangover podcast
  • DJI Mic kit
  • MacBook Pro M2, a new addition to the kit after my former M1 MacBook Pro got drunk on a glass of whisky
  • Philips OneBlade shaver, the best travel shaver I could find and the only one that has USB charging
  • ThruNite torch that takes AA batteries because you can’t leave emergency eyesight to a lithium USB-charged battery
  • 35mm f/1.8, 50mm f/1.8, 70-200mm f/2.8
  • Anker charger and Britt has one too
  • my friend Scotty’s latest book on my Kobo Libra 2 (I’m a recent convert away from Kindle, and love this Kobo!)

Our whole charging strategy is based on IEC C7 (Figure 8) leads and getting local leads wherever we go and they plug into the Anker chargers and the 96W Apple charger. There’s a blog post on my reasoning for this. I’m now a cable dad.

So, rate my desk.