For the past 3 years or so, I’ve been using a Lowepro SlingShot 100 AW.  I love my Lowepro SlingShot 100 AW, especially for hiking and traveling.  But there are definitely times when I wish I had a more subtle and casual looking bag that I could use to take my camera around with me.  As a female, there are a lot of times when a black slingbag just doesn’t go with your outfit.  Especially if you are wearing a dress.

There is a company called jill-e that makes camera bags for women but they are ridiculously expensive and they don’t look that great.  Whatever company that can design nice camera bags for women at a reasonable price will become rich!

I considered buying a Crumpler but their colors aren’t neutral enough and I don’t really like the exterior design of their bags — especially the two-toned ones.

So I decided on a Domke 5XB Shoulder/Belt Bag (Sand).

It came in the mail yesterday.  It also comes in Chocolate, Navy and Olive but I think Sand is the best color.  If you’re familiar with Domke camera bags, you know that their best feature is the movable padded inserts.  The Domke 5XB is pretty small so there’s not much customization that needs to be done but I do like the fact that I can reconfigure the inserts depending on what lens I’ll have mounted on my camera body.  I have a D200 and my biggest lens is the 18-200 VR so it’s a pretty snug fit, but that’s what I wanted.  I never carry more than two lenses at a time and I don’t want a bag that’s bigger than what I need.

I haven’t taken it out for a shoot yet but I’ve put the camera body and lenses inside and I like the way it fits.  The bag itself feels pretty rugged and durable.  There was a cheesy luggage tag on it and I promptly removed that.  It’s technically a shoulder & belt bag but I can’t imagine wearing this on my belt.

I like that the sand color keeps the bag from screaming “steal me!”  I might cut off the Domke tag since it’s a pretty well known company.  But I kind of like the way the tag looks, I might only cut it off if we venture overseas again.  Overall, I’m pretty happy with the bag so far.  You should expect to see more weekend around-town photos because of this new acquisition.

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Self-sufficient living in the city.  Urban homesteading.  I’m a little disturbed lately by all the people who are interested in self-sufficient living these days.  I mean, I’m all for home gardens and organic products but when people are starting to raise their own chickens in the city I start getting a little weirded out.  I understand that our planet is going through some tough times and there are a lot of question marks in the future (especially as gas and food costs are skyrocketing) but it seems so strange to start regressing towards self-sufficiency.  If I remember my middle school history lessons well enough, I recall that civilization started making the most progress when we started specializing and cooperating.  You shouldn’t need to raise your own chickens because Farmer Ted does nothing but raise chickens and it’s much cheaper (considering that time is money) to buy from him.  When these basic principles of a thriving economy start becoming untrue because it’s unhealthy (injected growth hormones) or more expensive to buy from specialized farmers — I start to worry even more about where we are headed.  Am I missing something here?

I will admit that the discipline it takes to return to self-sufficient living is admirable.  I admire efforts like The Path Project.  But I admire them the way that I admire pioneers that settled the West.  There’s no doubt that I value their hard work, dedication and discipline.  But I don’t envy their life and I don’t desire to live in that era!

Surely there has to be another way.