Jorge Fernandez was born and raised in the small Spanish town of Monzon. After finishing high school he moved to Madrid to get a technical engineering degree. In the late 90’s he started to study film photography during a few years and after that he decided to do the jump to digital, the craft of which he learned for himself.
The passion for photography grew hand by hand with the passion for traveling. After more than twenty years of traveling Jorge Fernandez has visited more than 80 countries and the photography portfolio grew with every trip, evolving from focusing mainly on landscapes to the center of his work nowadays which is, above all, the people that live in the places he visits and their everyday lifes and customs. [Official Website]
What’s in your camera bag?
What I bring with me during my trips depends a lot on the destination and on the kind of project I have in mind, and has also changed with the times since I did a lot of experimentation until I found out “my way”. I used to carry flashes, filters, modifiers… all that sort of stuff but I realized that all those things made me shoot less and less since it took such a lot of time to prepare for the work. So nowadays I keep it simple and try to travel as light as possible, so I usually travel with a Fujifilm x-pro2 and a Nikon D810 bodies, then I use a Fujinon XF 27mm f/2.8 and a Fujinon XF 56mm f/1.2 for the Fujifilm and for the Nikon I usually travel with a Nikkor 35mm f/2D and a Nikkor 50mm f/1.4. I bring with me six SD 64GB memory cards, and three batteries for each camera, the chargers for those batteries and a cleaning kit for the cameras and the lenses. That is my basic equipment, but when I go to a destination where I know I’m going to shoot landscapes (for example last trip to Iceland) I put into the sack a nikkor 24mm f/2.8, some neutral density filters, remote triggers for both cameras and a Vanguard ALTA series 70 tripod. For a very specific purpose I could carry a couple of flash units and modifiers but I has been a long time since I travel with them.
If I’m going to be on the road long enough I also bring with me a MacBook Pro 13” to work with the photographs whilst I’m away and a WD My Passport 2TD hard disk to back up all the work.
What’s the most surprising thing you carry?
I guess I could say that the most surprising thing I have in my bag is a cheap old school mobile phone I bought in Africa for 10$. When everybody is having a smart phone I still travel with a simple phone I can only buy a local SIM card and talk, no distractions!
What is the one thing you couldn’t live without?
The only thing I’d really miss if I didn’t have it while on a trip It’d be a camera to register what I’m experiencing. Otherwise it always comes handy to have with you a couple of earplugs to sleep in noisy places, a torch, some silver tape, a knife and a piece of rope to get yourself out of some situations.
What are some of the details that you find essential for your style of bags?
First of all it has to be a backpack comfortable to walk with it for hours, since most of the time we carry lot of weight inside them, it has to have an easy access to the equipment and most important of all it has to have easily modifiable compartments to adapt to the gear I have in every occasion.
What are the important things for protecting your camera gear?
I usually carry my equipment inside the bag, so it has to have padded compartments. Normally I always have the lenses with their caps, I have a brush and a blower to keep dust away and a cleaning lenses kit to keep my photographs dust-free. Otherwise and depending on the situation I take extra measures to protect my gear, like using a plastic bag to avoid dust in deserts or water during rainy days or the holi festival… things like that.
Can you give me the essential carry kit when traveling the globe (bags, accessories etc.)?
For me it is important to have two backpacks: one bigger for the luggage and a smaller one for the gear. It is also good to have a small bag or cover for the camera for those days you can leave all your stuff in the room and do discovery trips. Always good to have some kind of rain cover to protect your gear and a very important thing to carry with you is a good book for the long hours waiting for transportation and things like that. Apart from that you can have with you a credit card with funds since nowadays you can buy almost everything you may need almost everywhere.
