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!

The Lowepro Photo Hatchback 16L AW is my travel companion while covering CES in Las Vegas, NV. Even though I often use this versatile backpack for outdoor trips, it has a number of features that I love for city life too. One in particular is the removable camera box.

I store my Olympus OM-D and PEN mini camera bodies, plus 5 lenses, in the padded compartment with storm-flap closure and grab handles. During work hours at the trade show, I can easily access all of my gear. But once the day is over, I like to work with just the PEN mini and a prime lens for street shooting, leaving the rest of my equipment back in the hotel room. This is where I put that removable camera box to use.

I take the camera box out of the Photo Hatchback, with the balance of my equipment stored inside, and then secure the entire unit in the hotel safe. I don’t have to unpack the bag and fool around with individual components, because everything is already organized within the removable compartment. I’m just temporarily relocating it.

I can literally do this on my way out the door. It only takes seconds. Once I return, I unlock the safe and put the camera box back in the Photo Hatchback, and I’m ready to go back to work.

Here’s a short movie that details this entire process.

This feature has saved me a great deal of time. In the past, I had to take out individual components from my camera bag, figure out how to arrange them in the safe, then move them back. It was a real hassle. The Photo Hatchback has changed all of that.

Plus, once the camera box is removed from the Photo Hatchback, it’s a fully functional backpack that can be used for recreational activity. Bottom line, this camera bag is just as wonderful in the city as it is on the trail.

Derrick Story is the Photography Evangelist for Lowepro.

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.

As a tour videographer the average work week can find me in any corner of the country. I create web content for music acts as they tour and perform. They release this content through their social media outlets as a vital way of connecting with their fans. Every day is another flight, another city and another show. Fitting as much gear into as small a space as possible is essential to making sure I have everything I need to do the job, haul everything on my own, and have it accessible at a moment’s notice.

Although my road rig consists of two Lowepro bags, the DSLR Video Fastpack 350 AW has become my go-to backpack. It is indispensable in providing the portability, comfort and versatility that I desire from a good backpack. Not to mention, it was one of the only suitable camera bags with enough space to accommodate my behemoth 17″ MacBook.

For me, filming does not just take place at the shows where my artists perform – it takes place everywhere: at the airport, in the car, at the hotel, during dinner, backstage, the after-party…you name it. Wherever the artists go, I go…ready and able to capture the moment. That’s why the DSLR Video Fastpack is perfect. The layout is specifically designed to house the essentials of the DSLR filmmaker while making them very easily accessible. I can easily swing the bag around on my shoulder to change lenses, swap memory cards or grab a fresh battery without even setting it down. It is literally swing, zip, swap, zip, swing and you are back filming again.

Inside my DSLR Video Fastpack I carry a Canon 5D MKiii, Canon 24mm f/1.4, Canon 50mm f/1.4, Canon 85mm f/1.8 and a Canon 24-105 f/4. I also carry: a MacBook Pro, MacBook Pro charger, external hard drive with cords, Rode Videomic Pro, large over-ear headphone, card reader, lens cleaning kit including solution, rag and blower, 10 camera batteries, camera battery charger, a four slot memory card case,  LED panel charger, lavaliere mic, ear buds, ear plugs, Go Pro cord, extra 9 volt and AAA batteries, business cards, extra lens caps, two intervalometers, and of course, my Konova slider strapped to the side.

I also keep a couple of Lowepro S&F Lens Exchange Case 200 AW bags strapped on either side of the DSLR Video Fastpack. Once I am at a show, I usually find a safe place to set my bags down at the back of the stage, at which point I strap the Lens Exchanges on to my belt to have more mobility while still keeping my glass or mic close at hand. They are also handy for squeezing in just a little extra stuff that won’t quite fit comfortably inside the pack.

My most recent video is a great example of what the tour life is like. Working with Krewella (an EDM/pop act based out of Chicago), one of my main clients, we kicked off their tour with a grueling weekend of three different shows in two days. It began in San Diego with a 6pm performance at the San Diego Music Festival; then an all-night flight to New York for a 2pm performance at the Electric Zoo Festival the next day; and then another flight – just two hours after they got off stage – down to Miami for a 1:30am performance at Grand Central. No sleep, no shower and no time to charge a single battery. We even flew back to New York just a few hours later at 4am. Weekends like these are what make having the right bags absolutely critical. Thankfully, Lowepro and the DSLR Video Fastpack make it easy.

Editor’s note: You could say that Northern California-based videographer Miles Evert truly represents ‘going the distance’ for his clients. His documentaries and music videos are all about capturing the moment. From pre-production to camera work to editing, Miles takes it all on and delivers amazing content. Check out his work on his web site and take a few minutes to watch his latest tour video here.

I’m terrified at the prospect of choosing a purse for the woman in my life. But I have great confidence when it comes to selecting a camera bag for a fellow photographer. Why? Because the Lowepro 2012 Holiday Gift Guide helps me find and purchase exactly the right item.

First, I begin by choosing “type of photographer”: Outdoor & Adventure, Street Scene & Events, Travel Internationally, or Capture Family Memories. Once I match the category to my gift recipient, I have 3-5 different bags to select from, complete with multiple views of the bag, specs for what it will hold, and background information about its intended use. If I see something I like, I can purchase it right on the spot.

As you’re perusing the gift guide, I have a few additional tips to ensure the perfect selection.

1. Personal Space vs Camera Space – Some bags are designed to maximize space for camera gear while others allow for more personal item storage. Think about how your photographer works, and shop accordingly. For example, a DSLR Video Fastpack 250 AW has an entire top area dedicated to personal space. Whereas the Urban Photo Sling is more for camera gear and tablet (both found under Travel Internationally).
2. iPad Storage – Speaking of tablets, if your recipient loves the iPad or equivalent tablet, then make sure there’s a dedicated space for it. The Photo Hatchback 22L AW for example (illustrated here) includes a dedicated tablet sleeve, whereas the outdoorsy Photo Sport 200 AW does not.
3. Color is Important – Some photographers insist on black for their bags while others enjoy a splash of color. Take a look at the travel gear your shooter uses, and try to find a solution that complements.
4. All Weather or Fair Weather – Rainstorms are calling cards for outdoorsy types. But your photographer my be more of a fair weather artist. If rain is in the forecast, then make sure the bag has an All Weather (AW) cover.
5. One Shoulder or Two – Backpacks distribute the weight across both shoulders, but have slower access, while sling and messenger bags rest on one shoulder with quicker access. Think about how your photographer typically works.

With a few minutes of exploration, you should be able to determine the perfect camera bag as a gift. Good luck, and happy holidays!

Derrick Story is the Photography Evangelist for Lowepro.

Fearless adventurers, photographers and videographers Rachid Dahnoun and Trevor Clark took an assignment up in the Yukon – the territory in westernmost Canada known for its remote and pristine beauty. Now, this was not just any assignment. Rachid and Trevor were hired to shoot a short film for a mountain bike/travel adventure outfitter.

So we’re talking 800km of trails, boreal forests, glacial rivers, stunning mountain ranges – plus luxury yurts for nighttime lodging. For equipment support, they chose Rover Pro AW packs to carry large loads of video production gear up and down thousands of feet of rugged terrain. And did we mention that Rachid and Trevor rode mountain bikes while shooting? “To be honest, I don’t think there is a bag out there that would have performed better in that scenario,” Rachid said. “They were an essential part of the project,” he added.

Check out diaries of the trip, the production and what fit in their packs on Rachid’s blog and Trevor’s blog.

You can read more about H&I Adventures and the trips they lead in the Yukon, Scotland, Mexico, Ecuador, Nepal and Spain. And enjoy the video we’ve posted below. Maybe you’ll get inspired to take a mountain-style adventure of your own!

Highlands & Islands Yukon Territory MTB from Rachid Dahnoun on Vimeo.