Your Gear Does Matter

You can’t claim gear doesn’t matter and then criticize someone’s gear.

If you look back over the life of this blog, I stopped criticizing fancy camera gear a long time ago. I had to face, while writing the A Lesser Photographer book, that the real problems were our obsession with the gear and the level of creativity that may be inhibited by automation.

This is a much more nuanced argument, which is why you won't find it discussed much.

The focus of minimalist photographers on "minimal" gear is a part of the problem. It shows a reluctance to define what gear gives each of us the right amount of resistance to be our creative best.

Take it to its extreme and “less is more" becomes nothing. So, we want more than that, but how much more is a matter of individual results, not necessarily individual wants or needs.

I don’t care what kind of camera you use, because I can’t know where you are at your creative best. I hope you’re trying to figure that out. I can’t imagine a more rewarding use of time.