Thoughts on photo equipment obsession

More often then not I stumble upon a photographer bragging and obsessing with (his) photo equipment. Both offline and online, there are numerous discussions about it and comments like “look at how awesome this photo was taken with camera X and lens Y”. I am not going to argue that better sensor will give you a better file to work with, or that better lens will bring out more details, less distortion, nicer bokeh and what not. The thing is that equipment without someone using it has no more value than a piece of rock. That someone will give life to it through beautiful photography or will simply make bad a photo.

The world we live in

We live in a world of consumerism, where marketing experts know all too good which buttons to push and no one, not even me, is immune to this. It’s really nice to see, hold or own a quality piece of equipment, it’s designed to make you feel that way. I too enjoy reading a good article or viewing interesting new review, especially if it is as funny as DigitalRev TV, and get excited when my preferred brand launches new stuff. It’s all nice and swell, but we don’t need all of it to make a good photo.

Less is more

If you are starting out as a photographer you will probably be overwhelmed with well everything… you first got your fancy new camera and took your photo and it is not as good as all those fancy photos you see everywhere. You might be thinking that they have better camera? The answer is probably yes, but most of really awesome photographers started with crappy (in todays standards) cameras, DIY lights, some of them developing films in their bathrooms. They used whatever they had available to them to produce an awesome photo.

Learn

All the chances are that you already have awesome tools, much better than you might think. Todays cameraphones are as powerful as some amateur or semipro cameras a couple of years ago. They might not have all the controls you would like but they can capture an awesome photos. Learn to use what you have, wether it’s a basic device, entry level DSLR or something better. It’s important to see the opportunity and know that you can capture it with what you have.

Think

If you don’t have a lens with shallow DOF, think of a way to isolate your subject differently. If you don’t have flashgun or a studio strobe think about the light you want to achieve and try finding a place and time to achieve similar effect with natural light. Not having something shouldn’t stop you from making awesome photos, just use what you have… your eyes and your brain.

Knowing all that it remains only to start shooting.

Good look 😉