gdanmitchell
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bboule wrote:
Nobody has mentioned the 3rd variable.. Time!
All the talent and the world and all the equipment in the world isn't going to overcome a lack of time to practice...
Absolutely true. This has always been clear to me due to my background in music where a thing called practice was the most important tool for becoming very good and maintaining that state. And it was also very, very clear that no amount of "hardware" (e.g. - "better instrument") was going to replace that or even make more than the tiniest, insignificant difference without that fundamental thing.
Practice develops a whole series of closely interrelated attributes without which good stuff won't be made. Some of these attributes are fairly objective - in photography the ability to quickly and almost intuitively "know" the right way(s) to deal with a given situation, to a large extent based on making the technical and mechanical stuff almost intuitive. Others are highly subjective - the development of a style, a way of seeing, and a deep familiarity with what does and doesn't work visually.
Gear is not unimportant, but its effect on the overall quality of what we do - in photography, in music, in cooking, in just about anything that involves the use of tools to produce something of affective value - is quite small relative to the giant, glaring thing that really makes a difference.
In some cases - perhaps too many cases in some circumstances - an obsessive focus on the "stuff" used by people who make/do interesting and cool things (cyclists, photographers, musicians, race car drivers, chefs, etc.) reveals at least two things about those with the obsession, one of which is positive and one of which is potentially much less so. The positive is that the interest in the people who do those things and what they manage to do is evidence of a hopeful belief that each of us can be more than what we are and that we want to grow and change. The less positive thing is that we can be sidetracked by the superficial things that we take to signify such admirable people - their bicycles, their cameras, their musical instruments, their cars - and divert our attention from what it is we really wish to experience or achieve, the powerful human nature of what they do. In the end, tools are just tools - only a potential means to that end. In and of themselves they have very, very limited value.
The only reason anyone cares about what Ansel (who was mentioned earlier in this thread) said about gear is because we care a hell of a lot about what he did with it. And the latter is the important thing to look at, wonder at, think about, and perhaps even try to emulate.
More attention to the tools will not get you very far in the grand scheme. Appropriate attention to tools can make a difference at some level, but only in a significant way insofar as primary attention is focused on these other things. In photography, that other thing is the nature and quality of photographs and how they speak.
Take care,
Dan
RDKirk - At one point in my life I was also a cyclist, and I went through a similar process - so I can relate. But in the end, the gear - as cool as it seemed at first - was just a means to being able to be on the bike and do the thing called cycling. :-)
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