Do You Have GAS as A Photographer
I recently wrote a blog about the RV lifestyle and posted it on Facebook and an RV forum where I am a member. I was surprised by how the photos touched some people and I received many kind comments. Here is one comment I received in the RV forum.Thanks for sharing.I had been thinking about another blog post and this person prompted me to do so.Your blog really brought something home to me that I've sort of just gotten lazy on; pictures. I used to take tons of pics and documented all of our adventures. Although I've got very nice Nikon and Canon point and shoots and a couple of nice DSLRs it just seemed like it was too much trouble to mess with them. Looking at your photos and narratives with them just clicked with me and made me feel the need to kick myself in the butt. The pics will live on and tell a story that will be long forgotten if you don't have them which is really important to me since my wife's bout with breast cancer. You also stop to take the time to take them in neat places....I tend to say "ooh, look at that" and keep rolling. We're retired....time isn't a pressing issue for us. Leaving for FL the last week of April and I'm headed to my closet now to dig out my cameras/equip and a journal. I WILL take the time to do this right starting this trip. Thanks again.
Do you have GAS? I've had GAS for several years. It started around year 2002 and lasted until 2014. For a while I did not even know I had GAS. Then I finally acknowledged I had GAS but my GAS just got worse. I could not seem to find a cure.
GAS is Gear Acquisition Syndrome.
- Are you always looking at the newest photography gear?
- Do you feel envy when you see someone with a larger lens than yours?
- Do you want a new camera just because yours is a year old and that new camera has some whiz bang cool feature?
- Do you have so much gear that you don't take many photos because it is a pain to drag all the heavy gear with you?
A long time ago in my early twenties I often played tennis with an older gentleman. He always beat me, every time. One night I complained that he always beat me because I had a $5 K-Mart wooden racquet and he had a high tech carbon composite racquet. He told me it wasn't the racquet that made him the better player but how he used it. But he agreed to swap racquets with me and he beat me again, just as bad. The same applies to photography. It is not the gear but how you use it.
Before I tell you how I cured my GAS, I want to share a few photos from my various cameras over the years and make a point. A great photo is not about the gear. It is about the story it tells or the memory it reinforces for you, the photographer, or for the people in the photo. If the photo triggers an emotion or memory for you, that is a great photo, regardless of the camera, or what others may think about your skills.
The photo at the top of this blog is one of my all time favorites of my father and my two sons. It was taken with the first digital camera I purchased, a lowly 1.3 megapixels Fuji 1400. The location is the Georgetown Loop train in Georgetown, Colorado.
The next several photos were taken with an Olympus C3000Z which had 3 megapixels.
This photo was taken at the Grand Tetons, Wyoming and is one of my favorite photos of my son Bradley with my father.
Every autumn I would "hire" my two sons to help me rake the leaves around the house. This usually took at least three weekends because we had a lot of trees and they did not drop their leaves all at once. The boys used the money I paid them to purchase Christmas gifts for the family. This was one of those days. They had a HUGE pile of leaves and had been playing in them.
In 2002 we camped just outside the entrance to the Grand Canyon. The next morning we got up before 5:00 AM. I warmed up sausage biscuits, we jumped in the truck and drove to the canyon while eating our biscuits. We hiked about a mile down into the canyon in the cool morning air. I like this photo because of the golden morning light, their shadows on the wall and my father holding his grandson's hand.
We did a lot of weekend camping in the North Carolina mountains, even in the winter. On one trip we drove up to the Blue Ridge Parkway near Grandfather Mountain but the Parkway was closed. That did not prevent us from looking around and checking out the ice. I like Tucker's red coat in this one and their smiles.
We enjoyed a sport called Geocaching. I think we found over 150 caches. The photo below was taken on a beautiful day in October with a chill in the air. We were doing a multi-cache in the Panthertown Valley of North Carolina where each cache gave us instructions and coordinates for finding the next cache. The total hike was about five miles and the final cache had instructions for a short cut back to where we parked the truck. To be safe I had purchased a trail map of the area so I could find our way back to the truck without backtracking if we failed to find the final cache. At some point in the hike I realized I had left the map in the truck.
So we pushed on. We had trouble finding the final cache late in the day and I thought we were going to have to spend the night in the woods since we had no flashlights and there were many cliffs and waterfalls in the area. It was not a place to be wondering around after dark. But we found the final cache with short cut instructions and made it back to the truck just as it was getting too dark to be walking in the woods. We talked about that weekend for a long time. On every hike after that one we all had little fanny packs with a space blanket, flashlight, whistle, fire starter, etc.
As I said there was a chill in the air and Tucker wanted me to make an adjustment to his clothes to keep him warm. Looking at this photo later and realizing we almost had to spend a night in the woods makes me realize how much complete trust they had in me, their Dad. The whole afternoon was just a playful time seeing waterfalls, throwing rocks in the streams and hiking trails in the golden light of an October day. This is one of my favorite photos of me and Tucker. I see a lot of love in this photo.
Campfires always make great photos. This was July 4th so the boys had sparklers. One of our favorite campgrounds in the North Carolina mountains was Panther Ridge Campground at an elevation of 3500 feet. It was always cool enough at night to have a fire, even in July.
In 2004 we were leaving Yellowstone Park via the north east route and stopped for a break. This is one of my favorite photos of my Dad. The hat, the stance, the clouds, the shadow and the tree framing the left of the photo just make this a nice photo to me.
One more with the Olympus C3000Z 3 megapixel and I will move on. This was another winter geocaching camping trip to the western North Carolina mountains. It was alternating between rain, snow and sleet. We were wading creeks trying to find a geocache. We never found the geocache, but we talked about how much fun we were having. Tucker even talked about how sad it was that all his friends back in Cary, North Carolina were not having nearly as much fun in their warm homes as we were having.
My next camera was a Fuji FinePix E550 with 6.3 megapixels. The photo below was taken at the Outer Banks of North Carolina late in the day. It is one of my favorite photos of Tucker. I like the birds in the background, the late day light, the angry looking waves and Tucker just standing there looking at them.
I over exposed this one a little but it is still a nice photo of my two boys.
My next camera was a Canon Power Shot A620 with 7.1 megapixels. The photo below is one of my favorite nature photos. If you look closely you can see a bug on top of the mushroom. I took this early in the morning and there is a larger story regarding this photo. This photo was taken in the Daniel Cemetery in eastern Kentucky. My grandfather had died and my boys and I went to his funeral.
Funerals can be very different in eastern Kentucky. Once the body is prepared by the funeral home it is transported to the local church and never left alone. There are people in the church day and night until the burial. It becomes kind of family reunion. People that have left the hills return to the place of their youth. The local women bring in sandwiches, coffee and soft drinks to last through the long night. Many happy stories are recalled about the deceased and tall tales told about the "good ole days" all night long.
The Daniel Cemetery is near the church and as the sun was rising on the day of the funeral I took a walk to stretch my legs. I noticed this mushroom, moss and acorns and thought it would make a nice photo in the golden early morning light.
My next camera was a Fuji FinePix S6000fd with 6.3 megapixels. The photo below is is one of my favorite places in the South West USA, Hurrah Pass near Moab, Utah. This is truly in the middle of nowhere. Nothing but red rock in every direction and so quiet you don't want to speak.
A decent shot early in the morning at Arches National Park in Utah.
Next up was a Canon Power Shot A640 with 10 megapixels. We talked for years about doing some real snow skiing out west. So one year we just did it. We went to Santa Fe, New Mexico and that year they had one of the best seasons in years. We talked about the fun we had on that trip for a long time. There were no lines at the lifts and the runs seemed several miles long. The A640 was small enough to carry in my coat pocket.
I finally entered the DSLR world with a Nikon D60. The photos below were taken at a campground near the Smokey Mountains. I put the camera on a tripod, opened the shutter and the boys used LED flashlights with the lens removed to draw outlines around each other. I think you can pick out Super Man below and the next one is a pirate with a parrot on his shoulder.
Some fun rolling down Kill Devil Hills sand dunes at the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
Outer Banks of North Carolina.
The Nikon D90 was pretty large and took terrible video so I purchased a Canon Power Shot S95 point and shoot to take video and to have a small camera to carry in my pocket. This is my favorite of me and Laurie and was taken at Shelton Vineyards near Dobson, North Carolina. Check out her finger. She had just said "yes". My sister in law grabbed the S95 and took a photo. The mid day light was harsh but the little Canon automatically popped the flash and provided some fill in light to make a great photo and a very happy memory.
So now back to my GAS. I probably left out a couple of cameras I had over the years. I simply enjoy high tech toys. In 2014 my company showed their appreciation for my contributions by sending Laurie and me to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for a few days. I fed my GAS again by treating myself to a new camera, a Fuji X-100S since I did not want to drag a large DSLR camera with me.
I had a blast with that little Fuji. Over the next two years I rarely touched my Nikon D5100 that had replaced the Nikon D90. The Fuji X-100S was simply so much fun to use. It reminded me of my first days with a Sears and Roebuck 35mm back in the 70's.
Early this year I realized I never touched the DSLR any more. I loved the Fuji so much I started checking Google and there was an upgraded version, the X-100T. More Googling showed people were falling in love with the Fuji X100 cameras. Many people had already done what I was thinking of doing.
I decided to sell all my DSLR gear including the Fuji X100-S and get the Fuji X100-T. The Fuji camera just makes you want to take photos. It has a fixed lens so I can't agonize over which lens I should be using for a shot. It is small and quiet so I can carry it anywhere. It has the same sized sensor as my Nikon DSLRs, great low light performance and many different film simulations. I won't go into all the details. Just use Google if you are curious.
So I am making a commitment to try to avoid GAS for a few years. Fuji makes wide angle and telephoto adapters for the X100-T and I started looking at those but realized I was getting GAS again. My photo gear for the next several years will be the X100-T, a polarizing filter and sometimes a small tripod. It is very refreshing to just think about the photo instead of which lens or other gear I should be using. The Fuji is light and fits in a coat pocket. No more large, heavy camera bags for me.
I plan to just concentrate on photography for a few years and stop chasing after the latest new camera. I want to work on the art and fun of photography with out fussing over the gear. Look at the photos below taken with the Fuji X100-S and then I have one final point.
So my point is that the camera did not really matter in most of the photos above. The first one was taken with a 1.3 megapixel camera and the last one was a 16 megapixel camera. A couple of them required a telephoto lens but all the ones that stir emotion or sweet memories for me were "snapshots" and could have been taken with any of the cameras I owned over the years or even a late model smart phone. It's not the camera that makes a memorable photo. It's the person pressing the shutter button. And you must have the camera with you, not back home in a large camera bag in the closet.
Find a camera you like and is light enough to take with you frequently and capture some memories. Commit to that camera for a few years and stop looking at the latest and greatest gear. Read the manual and know how to use it without thinking.
I will end with these last three photos. The first is my sister Lora's daughter. The next is Lora and the last is Lora and my Dad (another favorite photo for me). These photos span 38 years. One was taken with the 16 megapixel Fuji X100-S, another with a 70's era Mamiya C220 box camera with a 2.25 inch negative and one with a 70's Sears and Roebuck 35mm. Did the camera really matter in any of these as far as how Lora feels about these photos? I don't think so.
