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Back when I was in my late teens/early 20’s and breaking into the “extreme sports” photograph world, I first set my sights on being a snowboard photographer. After all, I loved to snowboard and I loved photography, what could be better, right? Of course, it turned out to be a long slog with tougher challenges and more to learn that I thought. But I had some success and enjoyed it as the start to a career that would later see me move out of the cold and onto the streets (and water) with BMX, skateboarding and wakeboarding photography.
Now Is Forever cover
But during those early years I spent a lot of time poring over snowboarding magazines dissecting the photographers and their techniques. What did this guy shoot with, what film did so and so use, how did he get that effect, and so on. It’s one of those things that I now look back on, with two kids a wife and a full time job, and amazed that I ever had time to devote to. But I loved it. I cared so little about the tricks themselves that I often would forget to look at the rider’s name and went straight to the photographer. And during that time, one of the photographers who was most fascinating to me was a guy named Ari Marcopoulos. He shot with a Leica, he’d worked as an assistant to Warhol and Irving Penn, and his photos were authentic and soulful in a way that nobody else was really capturing in snowboarding at that time.
Jeff Galbraith is a longtime snowboard industry writer and editor (and current publisher of the wonderful snowboard magazine Frequency and fly fishing magazine The Flyfish Journal) and is someone who has worked with Ari many times over the years. So I asked him how he would explain Ari’s influence on the late 1990’s snowboard world. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Jeff described it better than I ever could:
Ari Marcopoulos is probably the most creatively savvy individual I have ever worked with. His aesthetic is based on reality, and when we worked together in the action sports world in the late 90s/early 2000s, there was a significant push in the industry to suspend reality, and focus on the fantastical. Ari was one of the guys who gave many of us the courage to push back the fantasy and reclaim the culture for ourselves.
He describes himself as a “soul photographer” and whether he is shooting a guy selling hot dogs in the Lower East Side or Lou Reed, his approach is the same.
Ari often talks about being “nostalgic for the future,” a notable approach in a world that pines for the comfort of the past.
He is the man. -Jeff Galbraith
Ari Marcopoulos
I never worked at the same heights of the snowboard industry as guys like Ari and Jeff. I was just starting out on my journey as a pro back then and I moved onto the other areas and subjects where I found my own success. But what Jeff said about Ari rings true for me as well. Looking at an industry that was being built up around a culture of corporate produced fantasy and hollow superstar personalities, Ari’s images served to remind me of what snowboarding really meant to me and what I might be able to make my images mean to others. I don’t really have any photographic “idols” and on one level Ari is just a guy with a camera. But on another level, the lesson that he inspired came at a pretty pivotal time for me and I’d like to think it was something I carried with me as I moved on to new adventures.
So when I heard that Ari had collaborated with Incase to make a camera bag, his name brought back memories from years ago. Inspired by that nostalgia, I decided to contact Incase and check out the bag for myself.
Incase
Incase (goincase.com) is a company that makes a lot of stuff to carry and protect other stuff. From iphone cases to carry on bags to laptop sleeves to camera bags. Their goal appears to be to make highly functional products that also happen to be stylishly designed. From what I have seen of their products, they succeed at doing so. Their camera bag line has been pretty small up until now, just the Ari bag, another sling style bag and a small padded SLR+lens bag. But for 2012 they are releasing some new photographic products and expanding the line. In the near future, I hope to get a few of them in for review as well. But for now, we are focusing on the Ari bag.
Incase
Design and construction
The Ari bag is a “sling” style bag. This means that it is worn on your back like a backpack, but only has a single strap and typically has access to the camera area on the side of the bag rather than the top. The advantages of such a bag are that it is significantly easier to access your camera than with a backpack, but far more comfortable to carry than a shoulder bag. With a backpack you have to take the pack off and set it down to access the camera. But with a sling bag, you can just rotate the bag around your body and, with the bag still hanging there, access your gear. This makes sling bags less than ideal for huge heavy loads, since there is only one strap holding the weight. But it makes them perfect for small to medium sized bags that you expect to be in and out of frequently.
The Ari bag is made of grey canvas that has a waterproof coating. The fabric isn’t quite as soft and supple as, for example, the Domke canvas bags. But the waterproof coating probably has something to do with that. That having been said, do keep in mind that it is just canvas. This isn’t ballistic nylon that has been super duper waterproofed. Waterproof costings don’t last forever. Still, I give credit to Ari and Incase, the bag includes a pull out rainfly. The fly even has a little art print on it, I assume from Ari. however, I’ll be dammed if I can figure out what it is supposed to be. Is it a jellyfish? A mushroom cloud? A photo making monster?).
Incase
The camera area is divided into three main “sections” via padded dividers (and a fourth which I will get to in a minute). The dividers can be removed, but they cannot be repositioned. Due to the previously mentioned fourth divided section, the three main sections are sort of a “small, medium, and large” setup. If you watch the video below, you can hear Ari talking about how he intended the large to fit a DSLR with a prime lens attached, the medium for an extra lens, and the small for a Leica rangefinder. While many of us might replace the Leica with a mirrorless system camera, overall he has got the bag laid out very well. While Ari appears to use a DSLR with a prime, the large section will fit a body with a zoom perhaps up to the size of a 24-70/2.8 attached. You do have to put it in lens down and not sideways as the images show the DSLR/prime combo loaded. But it fits well enough, if not quite as tightly held in place. Anything up to a 70-200/2.8 (and perhaps a bit larger) will fit in the medium section. The small section, as mentioned, is sized for a Leica rangefinder. But it also easily fits most any mirrorless system body/lens combo I tried. For some reason, the Incase photos show the second lens and camera in the opposite pockets, so obviously that can work as well if you are using a smaller second lens. There are a couple different handy mesh pockets that fit chargers, film, batteries and the like. The back of the bag has a document sized zippered section with an ipad/tablet pocket.
The shoulder strap is one of the most comfortable of any sling bag I have tried. For one thing, the part that rests on your shoulder is a good four inches wide. So that spreads the weight out a lot. It is also reversible which allows you to set the bag up to hang over your right or left shoulder. This can be a big deal for some people. I like the Lowepro Slingshot line of bags, but they force me to hang the bag off of the shoulder that I wouldn’t normally choose. So it’s always a little awkward trying to put the bag on until I remember that the reason it isn’t working is that I have to put it over the other shoulder.
Incase
Neat features
The fourth section
The “fourth” divided section that I mention above is actually a small section for putting a point and shoot or small prosumer camera into. Not only that, but the bag has a zippered access point on the front that allows you to get at that camera without opening up the rest of the bag. When accessing the pocket, your bag stays protected from the elements due to a covering flap that is held over the zipper with a magnet. It’s a really clever little pocket.
Adjustable strap
One of the things that is a slight pain about many sling bags is that the strap never seems to be the length you want it to be. It needs to be tightened up so that the bag rides close to your body when carrying it. But you always need a little more strap to easily swing it around to access your gear. The Ari has a clever and simple solution, there are two metal grab “rings” (though they are not actually ring shaped) on the strap. You grab and pull one to loosen and grab the other and pull to tighten back up again. It’s simple and it works. Plus, can be reversed to hang over either shoulder, which always bears mentioning again.
Rain Fly
You might not expect a bag like this to come with a rain fly. And indeed, I had played the bag for a little while before I noticed the zippered pocket on the bottom where it is stored. But it’s another testament to the fact that this bad was designed by a photographer to actually be used by other photographers in the real world.
Incase
iPad pocket
I think there is a temptation, particularly with bags in this capacity range, for bag companies to try and make things “just a little bit bigger” so that a laptop can fit into the bag. Yes, most of us do use a computer as part of our photography and yes, many of us use laptops. However, adding space for a laptop in a bag that doesn’t need it can mess up the balance, comfort and size of what otherwise would have been a very nice bag. Thankfully Ari and the people at Incase resisted the temptation. What the Ari bag does have is an iPad/tablet slot (fur lines no less) inside it’s zippered document section. To me, this is a good move. A tablet is is the perfect thing to take out shooting with you that won’t slow you down or tear your shoulder off, but still allows you to stay connected and even get some work done should the need arise. Don’t forget, this is a bag for being out, shooting photo in the world. It isn’t a bag for taking to a pro wedding job. Leave the laptop at home. However, in the interest of honesty, I should mention that you should easily be able to fit a Macbook Air sized laptop in the Ari bag’s document section. You might even be able to fit a 13" Macbook Pro sized laptop in there, but it would be tight.
White balance swatches.
On the “back” of the bag (meaning the side that sits against your body) there are a set of six greyscale swatches. White, black, and four grey shades. The idea being that if you are in a tricky white balance situation, you would take off the bag and shoot a photo of the swatches. Then later when you were post processing, you could use that image to set your color balance for the rest of the shots taken in that lighting. Does it work perfectly? Sure, sometimes. But white balance being what it is, some lighting situations are always going to mess with even a perfectly set white point. But the swatches are a really clever idea and they do get you closer to an accurate white balance much faster than you would have otherwise. This is particularly true if there was no true white subject in your scene for you to work off of.
Incase
It’s grey
Okay, this isn’t really a “feature”. But in a world where camera bag choices are often black, black, black or some crazy colors like plum or tangerine, it’s nice to see a bag that looks as classy as this one. Personal preference? Perhaps a bit. Still, I bet a lot of people agree with me.
In Use
It’s rare for me to feel like a bag does exactly what I expected it to do. But the Incase Ari bag does that. It is comfortable to carry, easy to work out of, quick to access gear, and generally does just what Ari appears to have designed it to. There are few sling bags that are as easy to access as the Ari. I suspect the design and location of both the strap and zipper have a lot to do with this. Using other sling bags, I haven’t felt like getting into the bag was that easy, even after it had been slung around my body. Either it was too tight up against my body or the zipper had to be pulled at an un-natural angle or something along those lines. It wasn’t a dealbreaker, but those bags never felt as smooth in use as I had hoped they would. The Ari bag, at least for me, was a big improvement in this regard.
While the bag was designed with a Leica or mirrorless system camera in mind for that smaller section, one thing it wasn’t really designed for was to carry an extra lens for that camera. That having been said, I think there is room in the bag to make it work if you really wanted a second lens to ride along. But remember, part of what this bag was designed to do was to take only what someone like Ari feels that he needs to shoot, not to carry everything but the kitchen sink. It’s a lesson that all of us should remember. After all, how many times have you loaded up a bag for a shooting trip somewhere, gotten partway through the day, and then wished you had brought half as much stuff? If you’ve never done that, you are a better person than me.
Ari Marcopoulos
Conclusion
The Incase Ari is a well designed piece of minimalist camera bag. It is laid out to carry a specific amount of gear, make it very easy to access and comfortable to carry. Even if they didn’t know beforehand, nobody is likely to be surprised to hear that it was designed by a photographer. In addition, it’s a bag that doesn’t look like a camera bag, and in fact, has a classier style than most any camera bag has a right to. It has some clever features that you don’t see on many, if any, other bags. The Ari bag’s biggest drawback in my mind is that, as I mentioned, the dividers are removable but not reposition-able. I understand that Ari was designing a bag for the way that he shoots, but it would have increased the usefulness of the bag if it could have been slightly customizable for the way other people shoot as well. Still, it’s an amazing bag that easily fit into the way that I like to work when out in the world.
If you are someone who carries two bodies and a pile of f/2.8 zooms, this bag probably isn’t for you. But if you are a street photographer, a traveler, or just someone who likes to have their camera with them through all of life’s daily adventures, you should give the Incase Ari a look. With a $199 list price, it’s not the cheapest bag in its class (though Incase has frequent sales and discounts listed on their Facebook page). Still, there isn’t a lot out there that can match it for sheer usability if it fits the kind of work you are trying to do and gear you are trying to carry. It is a bag that should, as much as a bag can, inspire you to get out in the world and move your photography forward. Perhaps unsurprising because that is what the bag’s designer inspired a number of us to do in the past.
, February 23, 2012; 06:51 P.M. 