Paring it down

Our new gear recently is aiming at a couple of different issues that, in my opinion hinder more than help. For one, in the past I had a nasty lens habit. I thought I needed every focal length. I have since learned that we don’t need them all, that really only complicates things while adding significant weight to my kit. I actually carried lenses with me that I almost never used!

Of the photographers I’ve met who were particularly creative in their work, I have noticed that not many of them seem to concern themselves much with gear. They can’t often tell you much about the specs of their camera, it just doesn’t matter to them. They are busy immersed in what they like to do, create beautiful art. Today, any camera made in the last ten years or so will have the features that most of us use. The brand or model of a camera body doesn’t matter, they’re mostly the same anyway, just a tool after all.

I’ve limited myself with three lenses and I think I can hold myself to that. I have one lens that does 90% of my shooting, then a wide one and a long one for those other 10%. That’s as technical as I wish to be at this point, I’m trying to push my creativity to new places now. The “perfect” technical image is just too rare so express yourself with imperfect but beautiful. :)

Freedom in Art

I used to think of myself as a landscape photographer. As such, you would hold yourself to a standard of capturing a scene in front of you and using only fairly minimal post production. Getting it right in the camera was a mantra you lived by. You would never entertain the idea of swapping out a sky for instance, you worked with the conditions you were presented with. If you showed up to a location and the weather was not what you had envisioned, you would often leave and come back another time if possible.

A photographer I follow named Mark Littlejohn once described himself by saying, “I’m not a faithful servant of the truth”. He actually was speaking of his tendency to split tone his images and often deviated from the true colour palette in the process. What is actually holding us to “reality”? I began thinking years ago that when we go to places where iconic shots exist, we grab them just like we used to and very little of what we do is truly original. When I”m traveling and I find myself near one of those iconic places, you know I still shoot it like we all do but afterward it kind of leaves my feeling unfulfilled.

Lately, I have been working on freeing myself of some of those rules and allowing myself more freedom to mess with some stuff in the name of art. I no longer shy away from the editing that I used to. I might change skies now or use texture overlays to create a more original piece. If you think about it, Fine Art itself falls within this world. It is work that exists solely for it’s aesthetics and is often heavily edited to what you see. Total freedom and creativity at it’s finest. That’s what I am working toward now.