This week I get to show you a line of products that have captured my imagination - the Barbershop range of camera and photographic bags. There are new stocks of these in Murray Street and Stirling Street - and you'll be well advised to visit each shop as there are different models in each one.
The Murray Street shop was my first stop but I wasn't able to take any of the bags for illustration - I had ridden the train into town rather than the car and couldn't carry any of them back home with me. So I posed them in the shop and hoped that the colour temperatures of the various light sources would not clash too much. I mention this because people seeing the pictures might get a false impression of the colours of the canvas and leather used in the bags. Yet another reason for coming down and actually hefting the goods in-store and seeing them in their true hues.
The basic display of the smaller bags is shown in the heading image. Barbershop make models ranging from compact shoulder bags through messengers, gladstones, and up to backpacks. There is also an extremely elegant photographic suitcase as well. There are a number of finishes and materials that are repeated through the range - in effect there is something for nearly everyone.
One thing that you can avoid when you are dealing with Barbershop bags is the tendency of modern designers to make strange shapes and impossible features...Barbershop deals in traditional form and materials, and then craft them superbly.
I'll say right at the start that I am biased in their favour - I have a Barbershop " Bob Cut " bag that holds my main Fujifilm mirror-less camera and lenses and transports it between home and my studio. When I need to look elegant on a job, it is the transport bag, and when I go on holiday with camera, lenses, and editorial iPad, it is the airline carry-on that takes the whole portable office. I think the bag I have is the nicest one I have ever owned - and like most photographers, I have owned a score of them at one time or the other.
Now, a simple one to begin with - the small messenger bag known as the " Pageboy ".
That's grained brown leather in the example shown, and it has a permanently attached nylon shoulder strap with padded rider. It's intended for the compact or smaller mirror-less cameras and the iPad Mini-sized tablet.
Shift the compartments to your liking or take the whole padded tub out for a larger camera. The bag - like all Barbershop productions - is fully lined.
Okay, you can have the bag in this leather, darker leathers, cordura with leather corners, canvas with leather corners, or even a tweed. That one's in their on-line catalogue but I didn't see an example of it at the shops.
It is a great traveller's choice for those people who want to go light. The wise travellers...
Tomorrow - we consider the not-quite-so-wise travellers.
