Olympus OM-D E-M5 – Eugene Eric Kim

Choosing a good camera bag is hard. It’s a very personal endeavor on two levels: style and functionality. How people use their cameras and what they decide to carry differ significantly for different people.

When I decided to step up my photography game earlier this year, I decided to go with a Micro Four Thirds system — specifically, the Olympus OM-D E-M5 — rather than a DSLR. The reason largely boiled down to size and quality. There are awesome lenses available for Micro Four Thirds, and the equipment as a whole is significantly smaller and lighter than the equivalent DSLR camera and lenses. When I see my friends lugging around giant packs of equipment, I just shake my head. In this day and age, it’s just not necessary.

Once I had acquired my new equipment, I needed to figure out how I was going to carry it all around. Specifically, I wanted something:

Small. What’s the point otherwise of smaller equipment?
Ergonomic. Again, what’s the point of small and light if your bag is not designed to feel comfortable?
High quality. My equipment is expensive. I didn’t need to be putting at risk in a cheap bag.
Accessible. Compact isn’t helpful if you have to dig around to get your equipment.
Stylish. I’m not exactly a fashionista, but I like things that look good.
Flexible. I didn’t necessarily need a single system to work for all occasions. If it made sense to have different bags for different occasions, I was willing to do that… within reason. I didn’t want to have a bunch of unitasking bags floating around either.

Given the flexibility requirement, the first question I asked was, “How can I use my carry this equipment in my existing bags?”

I’m brand loyal to very few companies, but one of them is Tom Bihn, a Seattle-based company that makes beautiful, functional bags. I bought my first Tom Bihn bag in 2008, and I have consistently bought new bags (for different purposes — these things are designed to last forever) approximately every two years. I also have a boatload of accessories. They are not cheap, but they are high-quality, they look great, and they are superbly functional. I cannot recommend them highly enough.

I first bought a Brain Bag as a travel backpack that could hold a whole bunch of stuff efficiently and ergonomically. That bag was so comfortable, I replaced my messenger bag with it and started using it as my every day work bag. However, there were certain situations — walking around the city for the day, for example — when a big bag was overkill, and all I needed was something that would carry my water bottle, a pocket camera, and a book. I eventually bought a Medium Cafe Bag to fulfill that role.

This past year, I bought a Synapse 19, which has become my primary day and work bag. There is a larger version of the Synapse (the Synapse 25), but the smaller one is more comfortable, it fits quite a bit for its size, and it forces you to be smart about what you carry. I realized that most of the stuff I had been carrying around in my Brain Bag were “just in case” items. I was better off focusing on what I actually needed. It’s a shift in my philosophy about bags, one that colored my choice in photography bags.

So the first question was, could I carry my equipment around in my existing bags? The second question was, did I need to get another bag to fulfill different needs? The answer to both questions was yes.

Tom Bihn makes a camera insert for the Brain Bag called the Camera I-O. However, it’s designed for a DSLR system and was overkill for my camera. It also only fits in the Brain Bag. I wanted something that worked with my smaller bags.

I ended up buying this $20 insert from Amazon.com. It’s holds my camera and two additional lenses easily, and it fits perfectly into my Medium Cafe Bag, as you can see from the video below:

It fits easily into my Brain Bag, of course, but it’s a tight fit in my Synapse, and I can’t fit my laptop sleeve at the same time. My Synapse is good for carrying additional gear — lenses in lens pouches or the Side Effect (as described below), a flash, etc. — but it really doesn’t work well as a camera bag. And frankly, I don’t want to be using a backpack as a camera bag. It’s too hard to get my gear in and out.

The Medium Cafe Bag with insert works fine for most cases, but it’s not big or functional enough to carry additional gear. It’s also not functional enough for volume shooting — for example, if I’m shooting an event. In the latter case, I don’t want my camera in a bag. I use a BlackRapid Metro shoulder strap to hold my camera, but I needed something to hold my lenses. The Medium Cafe Bag or any other camera bag would have been overkill.

As it turned out, Tom Bihn had a great solution: the Side Effect, which can be used as a waist pack or a tiny shoulder pack. It can easily hold three lenses or two in heavily padded pouches. It can also fit in the bottom pocket of my Synapse 19, which gives me a modular, padded system for carrying my lenses in my backpack.

I wear the Side Effect with my lenses around my waist, as I describe in the video below. The original Side Effect had built-in, tuckaway waist straps, but it seems that most customers didn’t want that, so they replaced them with removable waist straps. I’m probably the only person in the world who wishes that they had kept the old waist straps, but it’s not a big deal. This system works fine.

The above bag combinations covers a good percentage of my needs. However, there are times when I don’t want to be carrying my camera on my shoulder (if I’m walking through a sketchy neighborhood, for example), I still want to have easy access to my camera (meaning a shoulder bag rather than a backup), and I need to carry more than my Medium Cafe Bag can easily accommodate (a flash, for example).

I thought about getting a Co-Pilot to fulfill this need, but the lack of built-in padding and my concerns about how efficient the space would be for this specific needs were deterrents. I decided I wanted a dedicated shoulder camera bag for this, and unfortunately, Tom Bihn does not make one. (Please consider it!)

I investigated a ton of camera-specific brands, and I ended up getting a Billingham-Hadley Small. These are gorgeous, high-quality bags, and it turned out to be the most functional as well as the perfect size. My only gripe is that it does not have a handle on the top (larger versions of the bag do). It’s perfect for keeping what I need most accessible, and if I need to carry additional items “just in case,” I wear my Synapse 19 as well.

I ended up choosing expensive bags, but it’s all well worth it in my opinion. Often, people buy cheaper bags, find that they don’t quite work, and then buy additional bags. It ends up adding up, both in expense and also in space and mindshare. Better to pay the money up-front for the right bag. If you do your research and especially if you’re willing to buy used, you can also find some good deals on the above bags.

I also can’t help reiterating how awesome the form factor of these systems are. I can carry quite a bit of equipment around very discreetly, and I don’t feel the effects of the weight, even if I’m on my feet all day.

I invested a ton of time into thinking about how I wanted to use my equipment and finding the bags that fit my needs, but it was worth it, and I hope others find the fruit of my research useful as well.

I’ve always loved taking pictures, but I’ve been taking it more seriously the past few months. I got an Olympus OM-D E-M5, which I’m loving, and I’ve been talking shop with friends, reading lots of photography blogs, and taking lots of pictures.

I’ve been struck by how many lessons I’ve learned also apply to facilitation, and I wanted to share some of them here.

1. You are not invisible

This is my sister running a 12K. She’s just passed the five mile marker, so she has about three miles left to go.

What’s wrong with this picture?

(No, it’s not that I cut off her left foot. That was unfortunate too, but ignore that detail for now.)

It’s that she’s smiling.

Why is she smiling? It’s not physical euphoria from having run five miles, nor even the glorious view. It’s because I’m standing there, pointing a camera at her.

As a photographer, I want to blend in and take candid pictures. That has proven to be challenging, because people get hyperconscious when they see a camera pointed at them, and they often change their behavior as a result. Some people are so sensitive to this, they’ll notice you even when you’re using a telephoto lens from across the room.

I’ve realized that I need to give up this notion that I can be invisible (even with a small camera and a telephoto lens) and thoughtfully consider my presence and role beyond snapping the picture. I can make a huge impact on the subject and the shot by how I interact with it — how quickly I move my body, how I hold my camera, what I say to the subject (if anything). I learned a lot about photographer presence by watching my friend, Eugene Chan, on a photo walk. and I’ve been trying to glean lessons from street photographers as well.

A lot of facilitators mistakenly believe that they need to be “objective” or “invisible” to be effective. You’re kidding yourself if you think this is even possible. The goal of facilitation is to help a group achieve its goals. You don’t do that by being invisible. You do that by participating authentically. Sometimes, that entails stepping back and simply listening. Other times, it requires expressing an actual opinion. What matters is how you do it, not whether you do it.

2. It’s not about the tool…

About a year ago, I posted some thoughts about tools versus craft as applied to photography. Since then, I’ve gotten a lot more practice with a wide variety of cameras and lenses, and I finally upgraded my own equipment last month. Still, I can say with even more conviction that having a better camera does not make you a better photographer.

I see this viscerally whenever I check my Instagram feed, where my friends post wonderful pictures from their cell phone cameras. The above shot of the Transamerica Pyramid was taken on her iPhone by my friend, Christina Samala, who always wows me with her composition. The iPhone has a damn good camera, but it is not the tool of choice for low-light photography. It doesn’t matter here, because this picture is all about the interesting angle, with the two buildings framing the pyramid, and the filter, which highlights the contrast between the yellow and red and night blue. She’s even made the graininess part of the allure rather than an obstacle. This picture is all about the photographer, not the tool.

The importance of craft is even more apparent in DigitalRev’s wonderful YouTube series, “Pro Photographer, Cheap Camera,” where they give professional photographers toy cameras and follow them around while they take pictures.

There are lots of tools and methodologies for facilitation. Many of them are even useful. But the surest sign of an inexperienced or bad facilitator is one who thinks that being certified in these different tools makes them good facilitators. It doesn’t.

3. … except when it is

It’s not that tools don’t matter. They do. But what really matters is the tight interrelationship between tool and craft and how those two co-evolve.

Ultimately, the goal of any art form is to express what’s in your head onto the medium of your choice. Sometimes, your current tools aren’t capable of this. Other times, the tools help you realize new forms of expression.

This past weekend, I was at the zoo with my friend, Justin, and his daughter. I wanted a shot of her running, where she was relatively clear, but the background was a blur. That meant slowing down the shutter speed to capture the blur, but also closing the aperture so that the photo wouldn’t be overexposed. I also used my camera’s vertical image stabilizers (one of the cool features of the OM-D E-M5) to prevent vertical blur as I panned and tracked. I couldn’t have taken the above picture with my point-and-shoot, at least not intentionally.

I can handle most facilitation needs with just about any tool, but there are certain “last mile” challenges where the tool is particularly important. For example, while visual facilitation is valuable in almost any circumstance, it’s also a specialized and expensive skill, so I wouldn’t insist on it unless the circumstances required it. Those circumstances include trying to develop shared understanding about a wicked problem across a diverse set of stakeholders, such as the work we did on the Delta Dialogues.

4. Constraints are liberating

With interchangeable lens cameras, you have the choice between prime and zoom lenses. Prime lenses are fixed length, meaning you can’t zoom in or out. There are some practical reasons for getting a prime over a zoom (e.g. size and weight, quality, cost), but I think the most interesting reason to do so is the power of constraint.

In other words, the lack of flexibility is actually a boon, not a burden. Prime lenses are, by definition, constrained. They force you to make choices as to what to shoot and how.

When I got my new camera, I decided I wanted to try shooting only with prime lenses. I was originally going to get a wide angle prime, which lets you capture more of the scene. Last year, I played with a tighter prime (35mm on a Canon T2i, roughly 50mm full-frame equivalent), and I didn’t like it. Too constraining.

But to my surprise, when I started playing around with lenses on my new camera, I found myself drawn to the 25mm lens (50mm full-frame equivalent on my OM-D E-M5). I had started to see this tighter focal length as liberating, because it eliminated options. More importantly, the tighter focal length forced me to focus on what I wanted to capture by removing things from the field of view, rather than simply allowing me to capture everything. It’s forcing me to be more thoughtful about what I want to shoot, which is resulting in better pictures.

I love the pictures of my friends above, because it literally maps to what I experienced that evening. (It helps that a 50mm full-frame equivalent focal length is roughly the same focal length as the human eye. In other words, what you see in your viewfinder is roughly the same size as what your eye sees.)

One of the reasons I cut out a foot in the shot of my sister running above was that I was trying to do too much. I had actually framed the shot in advance, and had practiced it a few times with previous runners. I knew what I wanted, and I felt confident I could get it. Then I saw her coming, and I got greedy. I saw another shot that I wanted, so I tried to take it, then I tried to reframe the shot I had been setting up. I got a decent shot, but I missed her foot, and my other shots were no good. If I had simply focused on the shot that I wanted, I would have had a wonderful picture. Less is more.

Similarly, constraints can be hugely frustrating for facilitators. The worst feeling you get as a facilitator is breaking up an interesting conversation. You want to go deep, you want to continue that inquiry process, you want to see movement and insight and astonishment and delight, and it sometimes seems like constraints just get in the way of that.

But treated the right way, constraints are actually quite liberating. They enable you to focus on what’s really important, which also makes a facilitator’s job easier. Simply timeboxing a conversation can be far more productive than having a facilitator try to intermediate.

5. Practice, practice, practice

I took this picture of Eugene on our photo walk. It’s a simple picture that I could have easily taken with my point-and-shoot or even my cell phone. But I wouldn’t have even thought to have taken a picture like this a year ago. I might have been drawn to the color of the wall, but I wouldn’t necessarily have thought to compose a shot around it. It’s a very basic concept, but it doesn’t occur naturally without a lot of practice.

As I mentioned earlier, I’ve been reading more than I ever have before about photography, and I’ve been looking at lots of pictures. However, reading, while useful, is no substitute for doing. Practice is the only way to master any craft. I’m experiencing firsthand how difficult it is to integrate the many concepts that I’ve read about. I’m also learning things through my practice that aren’t written anywhere, things that I’m not sure can even be expressed in written form.

I am particularly a fan of practicing with others. It’s amazing what you pick up from watching other people, even those who are not much more experienced than you are. Everyone sees the world differently, and those different perspectives are tremendously educational.

I worry that facilitation is too professionalized, that there’s too much emphasis on training and too little on doing. Facilitation is a skill that you can practice anywhere with anyone. You can practice it with your colleagues, your friends, and your family. And you should. That’s ultimately how you get good. Besides, the world could use a little more facilitation.

6. Facilitation is a role, not a title

I took three pictures of Eugene against that orange wall. The first time, I asked him to stand there, I took my shot, then I got ready to move on. Eugene stopped me, took off his backpack, zipped up his hoodie, and waited for me to take another shot. Then he put on his glasses and waited again. Technically, Eugene was the model, not the photographer, but he played as much of a role as I did in setting up that shot.

Being facilitative is about helping a group achieve its goals. It’s a role that can — and ideally should — be shared. I have facilitated great meetings where I opened with a question, then stayed silent for the rest of the meeting, because the group didn’t need additional guidance.

7. Focus on one goal at a time

Photography is complicated, and when you’re a beginner like me, there are a thousand things to learn. The problem is, you can’t learn all those things at once. You have to take things step-by-step. When you’re too ambitious in your learning agenda, you compromise the quality of your learning.

There are a lot of areas in which I’d like to improve, but I’m focusing on… well, focusing. In particular, I want to make sure that the pictures I take are in-focus where I want them to be in focus. It’s not as easy as it sounds, even with today’s cameras. Witness the picture above of my friends’ kids, where the sister is slightly out-of-focus. (I needed to increase my aperture in order to get both brother and sister in focus. See, it’s complicated!) It was a nice moment, and I’m glad I captured it, but it would have been even nicer if the sister were in focus.

Facilitation is complicated too. It requires deep listening, self-awareness, an intuitive grasp of group dynamics, attention to the space, and clarity around objectives. Instead of trying to learn all of those things at once, it’s best to focus on one step at a time.

8. Enjoy the journey!

This is me over dinner after my photo walk with Eugene, looking at his pictures. If I look annoyed, it’s because I was. I was annoyed, because we were on the same walk, and he could somehow see things that I couldn’t.

I was annoyed, but I was mostly in awe, because I loved what he captured, and more importantly, I loved spending the day walking around and taking pictures with my friends. This is a more accurate reflection of how I felt about the day:

I am very self-critical, because I want to get better. But I also love the journey. I love the picture of my sister running, even though I cut off her foot (and notice it every time I look at it), because it makes me think about how glorious that day was and about how proud I am of her. And I love going around taking pictures, because it makes me pay more attention to the world around me, and because it allows me to share what I see with others.

It’s really fun being a beginner, because the pace of learning is faster and because I love that feeling of being in constant awe. I love marveling at other people’s pictures in my Flickr and Instagram feeds. I love watching Eugene handle a camera and interact with his subjects. I loved discussing with Justin the shot of his daughter running, listening to his suggestions for making it work, laughing at his daughter’s euphoria, and enjoying the fruits of our labor afterward.

Similarly, I get a rush from watching an interaction that I helped design unfold. I love being surprised — even when it’s not a good surprise! And I love watching true masters at work, marveling at and learning from their skill. One of my favorite things in the world is to watch my Groupaya co-founder, Kristin Cobble, working her magic in front of the room, marveling at the energy she brings, the questions she asks at just the right time. I’ve been practicing facilitation for quite some time, but I learn something new from her every single time.

Try as you might, you will never be perfect at either facilitation or photography. But the true fun isn’t in being perfect. It’s in the learning, the sensation and joy you get from refining your craft.

Eugene Eric Kim

Tom Bihn Bags for Micro Four Thirds Cameras

Eight Lessons on Facilitation from Photography