Rick Saez, Lowepro category/product manager, just returned from a trek to South Lake Tahoe to meet with a group of pros. His goal? Feedback about bag design. Here’s his report.

“I was fortunate to spend some time this past weekend in South Lake Tahoe with a group of photographers and videographers talking shop,” writes Rick. (“Yes, there was a bit of skiing too.”)

“I want to thank Corey Rich for gathering this impressive group. We had a great time in the CRP office reviewing bags and gear. I can’t divulge all the good stuff we discussed because I don’t want to give away any secrets, but we worked up some very good ideas.”

“As a bonus, I received terrific feedback on current products we have in the design pipeline. Thanks specifically to the Vail crew — Rex and Mike; Tahoe locals Chris, Dane, and Rachid; and Preta and Avery… our two pooch helpers! The photographers and videographers I met with are affiliated with Novus Select; thanks to them for making these pros available. It means a lot to have their support as we build new products.”

“It’s valuable to work in the field and see firsthand how our products are used. Some of us in the office are hobby photographers, so whenever we have the opportunity to meet with pros, we jump at the chance. These professionals make their living shooting and traveling. Seeing how they pack, organize, and even modify our bags is great. Thanks guys!”

Late last year, we launched the Rover Pro AW series and since then we’ve seen photographers take these bags all over the world. We recently spent time with Photographer and Filmmaker, Corey Rich to talk about what it’s like to carry the Rover Pro 45L AW on an assignment. Below are a few of his impressions of his full day with our mountain-stye, technical photo pack.

A Day in the Life: Corey Rich, Photographer/Filmmaker

This is the first overnight backpack that allows me to go into the woods or into the backcountry. It allows me to carry all of the necessary equipment I need to be comfortable outside. And to carry all of the equipment I need to be a photographer and filmmaker in those environments.

A Pack for All Gear

I like working with a camera bag that has the functionality of an outdoor pack. It really carries like an outdoor industry backpack. And it packs like one, too.

Built for Comfort

A comfortable fit is really important to me as I work. This pack is ultra lightweight with durable fabrics. And the design features really allow me to adapt the pack to my body. I appreciate the hydration pocket that lets me move quickly, but maintain hydration.

Flexibility in the Backcountry

A multifunctional camera pack like this works well in the backcountry. I actually can add and subtract compartments for cameras depending on how much equipment I need.

Technical, Mountain-Style Pack

These are the types of things I expect from any outdoor pack: high-performance technical fabrics, a comfortable suspension system, easy access to hydration, and multi-functional storage space.  Now we have this in the photography world with the Rover Pro AW.  This makes my job easier so I can focus on the task at hand.

Editor’s note:  Self-taught and incessantly driven pro photographer Adam Swords doesn’t stand still very often. When he’s not shooting for clients like Honda, Sony, Canon, Dirt Magazine and Mountain Biking UK, you might find him training in Tang Soo Do (he’s attained a fourth-degree black belt in this form of Korean Karate) or documenting the creative, small business owners in his home county of Warwickshire in the West Midlands region of England. And he writes a very entertaining blog as well.

Adam used the Lowepro Street & Field System for a mountain bike shoot in the Forest of Dean – or as he would say, in his kind of environment ”out in the woods shooting sports”. Advanced Photographer covered the shoot and profiled Adam in a recent article.

We asked him how this modular system worked in a non-urban environment and a bunch of other questions about the day-to-day life and aspirations of a successful, active lifestyle photographer/videographer.

Tell us how your Street & Field System set-up helps with your workflow and shooting style.
I’ve always liked to keep things simple with my photography equipment and when I find a solution that works for me, I stick with it. I’m not one for keeping bang up to date with the latest gizmo and gadget and nerding out over the minutia. In my line of work, I need to be sure that my gear will allow me to focus on one thing, getting “that” shot.

The Street & Field System is perfect for me; it’s a no nonsense set up that allows me to carry the essential bits of kit with me when a backpack or roller case won’t cut it. I use mine in environments and situations that don’t lend themselves to laying a bag on the ground in order get in to them – muddy trails and busy pits at motorsport events for example.

By having the essentials on me and within easy reach it means that I can spend more time shooting and less time worrying about changing lenses or rummaging around for a fresh memory card. It’s not often I’m without James my assistant, but when it’s not possible for him to be prepping the next lens change, or handing me fresh batteries, the Street & Field System almost acts like a second pair of hands.

You often combine video with a still shoot. How do you capture content in both mediums and convey the same theme for commercial clients?
This is a request I’m getting more and more from my commercial clients and I’d say it’s heavily attributed to the state of the economy right now and everyone is trying to penny pinch where they can. Luckily for me, I shoot my stills on a Canon 5D MKII, a camera which just so happens to shoot beautiful high definition video. This means that when I switch from shooting stills to video, I’m often still using the same lenses and camera, so the moving images inherently have the same look as the stills. Plus with me directing, I can ensure that my ideas and direction remains consistent across both media, ensuring the aesthetic qualities of both remain congruent. That said, I don’t always shoot video on DSLRs and when we’re using higher end camera equipment on a shoot, I ensure that our lens choice, colour profiles and final grading keep our shots looking similar. Ultimately though, I’d say that my direction is the greatest contributing factor in ensuring the same theme is conveyed in both the stills and video.

What’s the best advice you ever received from a fellow photographer?
I was lucky enough to intern for Chase Jarvis at very beginning of my career and I learned so much from him and the team it’s hard to choose just one thing.

I heard Chase say “A rising tide floats all the boats” a number of times and it’s an ideology that resonated the most with me. I think sharing what we know and helping each other out is a powerful thing and can only serve to boost the quality of not only our own work and the work of others, but tighten relationships within the industry.

It’s an idea not embraced by all and people are often scared of revealing their secrets to other photographers in case they become competition. But the way I look at it is that if I find myself competing with a new photographer because of what I’ve taught them, I’d better be improving and pushing my skills to the next level – It’s healthy.

What inspired you to create your “We are Warwickshire” project?
I shot a lot of automotive work in 2012 and wanted to work on something completely different. I’m an advocate of supporting local independent businesses and thought that a film series showcasing the amazing businesses and interesting people we have right on our doorstep would be a great way to give back to the community. It also allowed me to give the films a slightly more artistic feel and dial down that “sell, sell, sell” knob that is often ramped up to eleven in the commercial sector. I’ve had a great response to the films so far and will be wrapping up the project in a few months’ time with a screening and networking event to connect more people locally. (Editor’s note: You can see the series here.)

Name a geographical place that you’d love to return to or go to for an assignment.
Easy. California. I was lucky enough to travel out there for a week in 2011 for a shoot and I fell in love with the place. Without sounding too hippy, I think it’s my spiritual home.

Favorite new accessory that thrills you each time you use it?
Do I have to choose something photographic? Because in all honesty my favourite new ‘accessory’ is my mini remote control helicopter that I’m learning to fly like a boss around my living room and land on coasters. If I have to make this answer more photo-nerdy, then as a result of flying that I’m actually really interested in trying out some filming using a quad copter for aerial shots.

Most unusual item you keep in your camera bag?
A moustache drawn in sharpie on a piece of clear plastic! We use it on shoots to lighten the mood by asking all of the people on set to hold it up and have their photo taken.

Watch Adam’s Street & Field System shoot.

Our Rover Pro AW technical pack was built for carrying a large load of camera and camping gear to the backcountry. So you can imagine the pleasant surprise we got when Rebecca Litchfield – a UK fashion, celebrity and editorial photographer who typically uses camera rollers on her studio shoots – used it as her mainstay bag as she traveled to Poland.

A few weeks back, we chatted with Rebecca about her abandoned places and cultural memory photography and book project. She started her travels in Chernobyl in Central Ukraine (you can read more about that portion of her trip here).

The latest leg of her photographic journey took her to remote and historically significant sites in Lower Silesia, including the Liban Quarry and an abandoned chapel.

She carried a LOT of camera and personal gear – a full range of bodies, lenses, accessories, a tripod, camping supplies and plenty of creature comforts. It all fit in the Rover Pro 45L AW.

Rebecca gives a complete account of what she carried, how she packed, the way she traveled and the Rover Pro AW features she most appreciated (including the comfortable, trampoline-style suspension system) in her blog. We love her impressions in words and images…and hope you do, too.

Editor’s note: For the next few days you’ll find Brett Wilhelm at Aspen/Snowmass covering the over-the-top skiing and snowboarding action at the 2013 Winter X Games. A photographer, videographer and technology director for Rich Clarkson and Associates, LLC, Brett is a man who wears many hats (and he’s also a Black Collar Worker – for more on that, please read his entertaining and informative blog). He also serves as Workshop Director for the Summit Series of Workshops, and shoots the occasional side project out of his home-base of Boulder, Colorado.

Brett was kind enough to give us a bit of time as he and colleagues prepped for the current Aspen games. It’s awesome to get a firsthand account of this premier extreme sports event from this seasoned pro shooter. Read on and enjoy!

© Joshua Duplechian. Brett Wilhelm on the pipe at the Winter X Games Aspen

Can you give us some background on how you got started photographing the X Games?
The original call came, as many do in this industry, through friends of friends. Back in 2004, my roommate at the time was a filmmaker, and his former college roommate was then senior editor at EXPN.com (the forerunner to ESPN.com/Action and now XGames.com). They were looking for a local photo editor for Aspen, and he’d originally called my roommate, but my roommate ended up just recommending me.  I wasn’t technically a local and there wasn’t a budget for transportation and lodging, so I drove up and couched surfed to make it happen. A lot has changed since then! We’ve taken over more of the photography duties, developed an searchable archive for them and deployed Clarkson technology into their workflow. I always look forward to a great group of people on the XGames.com team, including working with my fellow staff photographers and extremely talented co-conspirators, Mark Kohlman and Joshua Duplechian.

Seeing a lot of “wild stuff” is kind of the norm at the X Games Aspen. What are you most looking forward to at this year’s event?
This event continues to amaze me with the innovation going on from year to year. Compared to the nearest neighbors in sport, perhaps gymnastics or ski aerials, the disciplines of slopestyle and superpipe skiing/snowboarding are still in their relative infancy. Thus, the complexity and creativity are still evolving at an incredibly rapid pace. Each event, tricks are executed that we just didn’t think were possible a year before. The talk of the town this week is the “Triple Cork”, an off-axis 1440. That’s four complete rotations with three flips added in for good measure. The cat-like ability to flip that many times in just a second or two of airtime and still land cleanly on your feet to ride away still boggles my mind. We’re hoping to see it landed for the first time at the X Games in snowboard slopestyle or perhaps ski big air. In ski pipe alone we have a couple veterans (at the ripe old age of their mid-twenties) coming back from injury after a season or two off, and it will be very interesting to see if they can catch up to the progression of the sport, and their 18 year old compatriots, even over just the last season or two that they’ve been out. Same for two-time Olympic Gold medalist Shaun White, returning to Snowboard Slopestyle competition after a few years focusing solely on Pipe, and he’s facing a similar challenge.

The other big news is moving to six events this year, taking us back to Aspen and Los Angeles, as well as Tignes, Barcelona, Munich and Foz do Iguacu! In short, anytime I’m out of the office and working in the mountains or across the globe, it’s something I’m looking forward to!

Do you have any personal tricks for setting up your gear to get the most of the action?
The modern Nikons we use are a marvel; the jump in high ISO performance in recent years has been a true game changer since so many of the prestige events here take place at night under essentially portable event lighting. I can’t think of any specific tips special to this event, other than to truly know and understand your equipment. When I get a new piece of gear, I take the time to sit down and read the manual cover to cover. Understand what the equipment can and can’t do for you and, more importantly, make sure that stuff is second nature to you, so can focus on creative imagery and you aren’t fumbling with controls when the temperature plummets and you’re ham fisted with frozen fingers.

I also keep a regular car cleaning chamois in my kit for taking water/melted snow off the cameras when it’s dumping out; they’re great for absorbing a ton of water for their weight, much better than lens cloths/towels. I also keep a nylon artists brush (maybe 1-1.5 inch width – get the nylon, not the natural hair brush, break off the handle) as it’s excellent for getting snow off the glass and out of the barrel of the lenses WITHOUT melting back to water and causing droplets. Lens cloths start heating up and absorbing water and that gets problematic quickly.  A couple of quick swipes every few minutes and you stay clear.

Finally, a big development in recent years is adapting our Clarkson wireless transmission system, using off the shelf technologies from Nikon and Photoshelter, combined with experience from a few years practice, we’re now transmitting live from the mountain to XGames.com and ESPN.com  editors in near-real time so that photos and web updates can keep pace with the broadcast. That’s been huge for us and I’m not sure where else photographers have been pushing wireless transmission to these kinds of limits in outdoor environments.

How do you deal with extremes in temperature?
Dressing warmly/comfortably is obviously a huge component – your creativity and reaction time drops off dramatically if you’re miserable. The charcoal/chemical pocket warmers are a lifesaver here, toe warmers in your boots, hand warmers in your gloves and sometimes the large “body warmers” stuck to the bottom of your camera battery can do wonders to keep you and your equipment functioning properly. The fingerless gloves with built-in “mitten flap” (available from many outdoors or fly fishing shops) are great because you can stick the heat pack in the mitten flap and only uncover the fingers you need for whatever task you’re doing.

At the same time, never bring your gear in to a warm room/event trailer from the freezing cold if you plan on going back out with it; everything will fog up immediately, so we do our best to keep it right outside the door within eyesight when we’re downloading.

What do you use to carry your gear as you cover events?
The workhorse of my kit is my trustworthy old Photo Trekker. I can’t tell you the number of trips it’s made with me all over the place, and I somehow have managed to take it on planes no matter what the size limit. It’s critical my entire kit stays with me as carryon and it’s just the right size to fit. On location, or on shorter gigs from home, I’ve been loving my Photo Sport 200 AW and Inverse 200 AW to maintain a low profile, and the built-in covers work not only to protect my gear when the heavens open, but also as a clean work space for setting gear down in the snow or dirt!

What’s a surprising “X Games survival item” that one might find in your camera bag?
A can of Red Bull!

Spirited photographer, fearless adventurer and incredibly nice guy Ian Spanier has a new book out – one that tells a story of people who don’t always get recognition for their service to communities across the United States. Local Heroes: Portraits of America’s Volunteer Firefighters is a tribute to the everyday citizens who help protect homes and lives.

Ian and collaborators Marek Fuchs, Florian Bachleda and Grace Martinez compiled moving portraits along with the timely issues that face many volunteer fire houses, such as underfunding and lack of appreciation for the time firefighters put in and sacrifices they make.

Parade Magazine calls the book “riveting”. Newsday notes that it’s “especially relevant”. And from NetGalley, “amazing…particularly moving…a must have”.

For more details and reviews of this publication and to see Ian’s unique take on intimate portraiture, visit the tumblr page for the book. You can read an interview about the project with writer Marek Fuchs. And order the book here – it would make a very meaningful holiday gift for a volunteer firefighter or photography fan on your list.

Ian Spanier is an award-winning photographer based in New York. His work has appeared in Conde’ Nast Traveler, Men’s Journal, Marie Claire, Muscle and Fitness,  Field & Stream, Time Out NY, Psychology Today, Los Angeles Magazine and Private Air. His first book, Playboy, A Guide to Cigars documents his travels to nearly every country that manufactures cigars. His newest book, Local Heroes: Portraits of America’s Volunteer Firefighters is published by Schiffer Books.

How photographers use Lowepro Pro Messenger AW Series bags are as unique as the shooters themselves. Here are three different artists who trust the Pro Messenger AW to protect their gear, with highlights about their favorite aspects of the bag.

Brian Smith

“Nothing beats updating a classic, so I love how Lowepro’s new Pro Messenger AW bags were able to create old school classic canvas feel from the latest space age spun polyester slate gray fabric – which is total 007 stuff like a great grey flannel suit that’s also bullet-proof…” from his post, Cool Gear: Lowepro Pro Messenger Camera Bags.

Ashley Forrette

“You can fit a ton of gear in this tiny little bag. I can pack in a 35mm, 50mm, 45mm tilt shift, flash, and a Canon Mark III body with a 85mm lens on it. Amazing. It looks great. It’s clean and simple, and there are no huge visible logos screaming out that it’s a camera bag.” from her post, A review of the Lowepro Pro Messenger AW Series Bag.

Gary Coronado

“The bag is small enough for it to be inconspicuous when you do your street photography, but, make no mistake, this bag has a huge capacity! Even my longest lens, the Canon EF 70-300 f/4-5.6 lens is no match!” from his post, Lowepro Pro Messenger 180 Review.

Your Pro Messenger

So, what’s your favorite feature on the Pro Messenger AW?

Derrick Story is the Photography Evangelist for Lowepro.