Website thinktankphoto.com Founded 20 January 2005 | Founder Deanne Fitzmaurice Type of business Privately held company | |
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Founders Doug Murdoch, Mike Sturm, Deanne Fitzmaurice and Kurt Rogers Products Camera bags, photography bags, camera cases, laptop bags Headquarters Santa Rosa, California, United States Profiles | ||
Think Tank Photo is a U.S. based manufacturer that designs and sells camera bags and accessories designed for use by professional and advanced amateur photographers and multimedia producers, specially those who use digital SLR cameras. The company's products are designed with the working photographer in mind and many of Think Tank's camera bags are designed for the needs of the frequent air traveler.
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Think Tank Photo was founded in 2005 in Santa Rosa, California by designers Doug Murdoch and Mike Sturm and by professional photographers Deanne Fitzmaurice and Kurt Rogers.
Modular belt system for event photography think tank photo
History
Before founding Think Tank Photo, Doug Murdoch was the vice president of design and production for Lowepro USA, the U.S. division of an international bag design company that produces products designed for photographic gear and other electronic accessories. Murdoch was also part owner of Fluxion, Inc., the company responsible for Lowepro's designs from 1992 to 2001.
Co-founder Mike Sturm worked with Murdoch at Lowepro and Fluxion starting in 1995 and through 2002. The two often collaborated on photographic bags and accessories, and Sturm was the primary designer and sample maker for Lowepro's popular DryZone 200 backpack, the first completely waterproof soft-sided camera bag.
Murdoch and Sturm realized that the serious amateur and the professional photographer have different equipment and transportation needs than the hobbyist. They felt that many companies were producing bags that failed to meet the needs of the professional photographer, so they collaborated with 2005 Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Deanne Fitzmaurice and her husband, photojournalist Kurt Rogers.
Fitzmaurice and Rogers embodied the needs of the photographers that Murdoch and Sturm wanted to reach. Fitzmaurice has traveled the world producing photographic stories for Time, Newsweek, US News & World Report, Sports Illustrated, People and ESPN. She spent more than 18 years working as a photojournalist for the San Francisco Chronicle. Rogers spent more than 27 years as a photojournalist with both the San Francisco Examiner and the San Francisco Chronicle.
The company chose the name Think Tank because they consider themselves primarily an "idea producing" company, focused on solving photographic needs by listening to the suggestions, feedback and complaints from photographers and creating tools to solve their problems.
The company's first product, the Airport Addicted® backpack was designed specifically to fit in the overhead compartments of airplanes while still protecting a top-end SLR camera and lenses. The Airport Addicted featured lockable zippers, a money and passport pouch and space for business cards.
Since the introduction of the Airport Addicted in 2005, the company's product line has expanded, often with products that are the first of their kind. The Think Tank catalog now includes rolling backpacks, modular harness systems, shoulder bags, digital holster bags, laptop bags and more. In 2009 the company produced one of the first bags on the market aimed at the multimedia professional who utilizes digital SLR cameras for video capture.