For various reasons, today I've been thinking about the camera kit that I have at home. This morning I stumbled across a random website (that I now can't find! This is the first time this has EVER happened to me with the Internet - normally I'm straight back there) that had one of those photography sayings that says "It's not the camera, but the photographer who's using it that counts."
Normally, I'd be nodding sagely and agreeing with them - but there was something about the metaphor they used that rang bells in my mind. The little vignette that the blogger painted was of someone serving up a great meal to their friends, and one of the guests saying "Hey, that's delicious: you must have a really expensive/great oven!". The blogger then likened this to someone seeing a beautiful photograph and saying to the photographer: "Wow, that's stunning - your camera must be really expensive..."
I can see their point. I have countless mouldy cameras that I defend with the exact same idea - that it's not the quality of the image, but the content, ideas and inspiration of the photographer that matters the most. I've seen incredible images taken with crappy camera phones, and rubbish ones shot with Hasselblads – but for the first time, I'm not sure that this maxim completely works.
Let's go back into the cooking metaphor. If you're only armed with a saucepan, a knife and some average-quality ingredients, then you're going to have to really know your spices and timings to produce an edible meal. Obviously even if you're not Michelin-starred, you could probably churn out some tasty comfort food: something to fill your belly on a cold night or shovel into your mouth before work to keep you going. Food as fuel, but not food as exciting, life-reaffirming art.
So if you want your guests to be wowed, to fall to the floor and cry: "oh my God, I didn't know food could taste this good!" then you're going to need top-quality ingredients and some high-end kitchen equipment to boot. Why do you think chefs spend so much money and time on their knives? They're tools that they use every single day, and only the best blade will make their job - expressing their creativity through food - easier. Try producing molecular gastronomy with only a wooden spoon and your best intentions. Obviously, it won't work - and that's not your fault (although really, you probably should have realised before you invited your friends over...) – you just don't have the right equipment.
Equally though, if you pay out for kit but have no idea what you're doing with it, it's very likely that you'll end up phoning for pizza. You need to know how to use those gadgets and gizmos to best effect - you need to know how flavours combine and sing, how to gently and tenderly slow-roast a piece of meat to bring out its best, and how to balance courses so your guests end up satied, delighting in the clever interplay between tastes and pleasantly full rather than overblown and stuffed.
Back in the world of photography, my metaphor stands – if you're a gifted photographer that understands the interplay of light, colour, tone and shadow, then yes - pick up any camera, no matter how crappy, and you'll create imagery that people will enjoy - but it's top-quality glass, sensors, films or camera bodies that you need in order to express your creativity most effectively and create imagery that's jaw-droppingly, awe-inspiringly world class. So unsurprisingly, most of the time you'll find that the camera the professional's using was expensive - and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Posted via web from Charlotte's posterous
