My little bag of tricks
EDC. An anacronym some of you might not have heard before. What does it mean? Eat doughie cookies? Elephants dont cough? Enormous….well ok you get the point. None of those! It means Every Day Carry and is basically an all encompassing phrase for various, sometimes useful items we might have about our persons on a daily basis. There are many levels to this culture, for this is what it is, especially in places like the USA. There are pocket carries, tech carries. carry on carries (airplanes) and other more specialised such as tool sets etc. Quite a number of sucessful Youtube videos and IG accounts explain the latest gear you must have and often review the next knife or pen or a myriad ither little gadgets you never knew you needed!
I got suckered into this sub hobby about two years ago and now have several pouches filled with various bits and bobs for differing situations. I have a daily pocket carry, a tech sling filled with gadgets and the one I want to talk about today, my camera bag EDC pouch.
So what do you carry and why? I hear you ask. Well, below is an image of my set up and I will go through what everything is and why I carry it.
So the first thing is the pouch itself, a Maxpedition Mini Pocket organiser. This is able to carry everything I need in the image and fits nicely into my camera bag. Its able to unzip flat so makes grabbing what I need from it very simple. Inside it has a number of elasticated loops and pockets so everything is held nicely in place and easy to find.
The next thing and probably my most used item is my Swiss Army Knife. This is the Huntsman and I use this knife every single day, several times a day.
As you can see it has a large selection of tools built in and I have used them all for various tasks. Along with the two blades it has a very sharp pair of scissors, a little saw, can opener, bottle opener, flat head screwdriver, awl, carry hook and a bottle opener. It also house a toothpick and pair of tweezers in the scales (handle).
Next is the torch. A rechargeable Baton 3 is my tool of choice here. Powerful and with several brightness settings, it is great for those early morning arrivals at photography destinations where some extra light is needed pre dawn. Waterproof too so built to handle the conditions. It recharges with a magnetic dock that has a USB connector so will charge from a power bank with ease.
Next is a little Bic lighter with about 1m of gorilla tape wrapped around it, a common trick in the EDC community. The lighter is great for starting a fire, an emergency light source, melting the ends of things. lighting cigarettes (not mine). The tape is waterproof and great for fixing small holes in wellies or coats/trousers/bags etc
Then we have a pen, a bolt action copper one and a rite in the rain notepad for when you need to leave a message somewhere or want to take down some quick thoughts whilst out and about. Vital for someone like me who has ADHD and ideas flicker through my head faster then the speed of light sometimes!
Below the torch is an INcharge multi charge cable that can pretty much attach anything to any charger. It has a lightning, USB A, USB C and micro USB connectors all in a tiny little cable, great for emergencies when you have left a particular cable at home.
to the right of the pouch you will find a money bag with a selection of medical supplies. Painkillers, plasters and antiseptic swabs and a nail file. I also have a lip balm as in windy or cold conditions my lips get chapped quite easily. Lastly I have some paracord and a large elastic band, both useful if you need to hold something together or do some thing back up!
EDC is all about preparing for as many eventualities you can think of in the most compact way possible and I feel its something maybe neglected by a lot of us landscape photographers. I would heartily recommend we all carry something like this about as its just about having the right thing at the most needed time.
I also have a powerful 140w Anker powerbank I keep in the car so I can always recharge a flat battery if needed, often a killer of photography sessions!
EDC is very personal to the individual and their needs so maybe have a think and wirte down a list fo things you would find beneficial to carrying around in your bag. If you change lenses a lot in the field, maybe a sensor swab might find its way into your kit. If you do a lot of astro, a head torch with a red light function would be more useful to you than a standard pocket torch. Keep it small though as its quite easy to end up with a heavy load!
I hope this inspires a few of you to build your own little EDC kits and let mme know in the comments if you already carry something like this with you.
Toodles!