At 08:55 AM 2/7/2002 -0800, Mark wrote:
>...<snip>
>I feel that it's alright to be a camera buff just so
>long as you don't lose sight of the purpose of what
>all this stuff is supposed to be used for. If that
>happens your on the road to collecting shrinkwrapped
>Leicas that commemorate everthing from the 10,000th
>changing of the guard in front of Buckingham palace to
>the first word of the Nigerian PM daughter (one of
>only 50 made!). ;)
Hi Mark,
I'm mostly not a collector, otherwise I would not have sold my 24
shift. I just didn't use it. I have gotten rid of more camera gear in
the last year than I have acquired. But I do care about the equipment,
and being an engineer, I admire the dynamic range of the OM system. But
when I take pictures, I just want the camera to respond. My
collectorness, given the OM system is fading away, comes from the fear
that I will loose or break something and not be able to replace it. I'm
hard on gear, like last year when I broke through some ice and dunked
all my gear in the river.
My co-worker refuses to spend more than he needs to get a result. He
has many pictures from his 120x120 pixel casio watch camera (that's
0.014 megapixels), and claims it has changed his seeing. Now he is in
pursuit of a square format camera. He took a beater OM-2n I had and
blacked out part of the screen to make it square. His next step is a
Yashicamat 124. To each his own way.
I'm more picky and like nice camera gear. Perhaps handling nice gear is
some form of compensation (or distraction) from the anxiety of 'not
knowing' during the creative process? I now practice a special form of
mediation, called 'form anxiety meditation', which helps tolerate being
in that ambiguous state that a blank canvas can induce. Still, I'm a
buff more than a artist. I am fascinated, though, by what that short
moment of clicking the shutter will produce. I even think I have
avoided digital cameras because of fear of the instant feedback, that I
would become distracted by viewing the result, or decide the last shot
was good enough, rather than trying a litter harder. It's easy to carry
a camera around and take pictures, but it's hard for me to go out and
really see.
I'm sure we can argue all the different types, I'm a little of each.
And see no harm or shame in being any particular type.
Wayne - getting close to my quota of posts for the year.
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