We need to ask Bill about the "Stealth -- Dog Food Bag" ploy. It's variations are used here from time to time. I think that one was in Camera 35 too. p.
For a long time I lived and worked in 2 floors of a small industrial building in Manhattan's Noho district. The fire department, when they went to put out a fire in an industrial building after hours presumed no one was living there and the first order of business was to put out the fire. As light industry exited the City, artists who needed large work-living spaces started to take over the spaces and make the fire department's job harder. They asked the live/work tenants to put AIR signs at the front doors of the building they lived in. If the firemen saw a sign on the building that said, for example, "AIR 5" they know an Artist was In Residence on the fifth floor, and now their first responsibility was to get the people out of the burning building.
When Noho and loft living became trendy, a city run Loft Board displaced the fire department in certifying whether or not you were an "artist" and could live in these buildings. An ex Miss America who was well connected headed up the board which looked at submissions and decided whether you were an artist. I was "grandfathered" in my building and didn't have to submit work. Nonetheless, I submitted 20 slides. Kodak mounted everything you sent them for processing; so, I was able to send the board framed slides that were the light struck film leader and those first blind frames when you were just advancing film to the first usable frame as examples of my abstract art. Apparently these were accepted.
As more and more rather well off "certified artists" purchased loft spaces at skyrocketing prices, the increasing number of somewhat naive people living in a non residential area in a building without doormen or much else in security attracted thieves. As the neighborhood changed, one photographer friend actually built a cinder brick, walk-in camera closet with a steel fire door. I never walked in or out of the building obviously carrying cameras. Since I was taking relatively long trips, often out of the country, I had to find some way to conceal the gear that was going in and out of the building. I needed containers that were large, rugged and inconspicuous. I settled on bags that each originally held 30 pounds of dog kibble. I have yet to find something more rugged, durable and discreet than a large dog food bag. And it carries the inference that you live with a very large, and possibly vicious, dog.
