David duChemin wrote this post yesterday which you should read. It’s one of the best things I have read in a long time, and I fully agree with him.
Gear is fun, and I love new toys as much as the next person… but it ain’t worth crap if you don’t have a story to tell. I met with a new client this weekend, and was sharing that even though I love shooting weddings, they serve a purpose… they allow me to fund the kind of humanitarian work that moves us to compassion and action. It was a reminder to me as much as anyone else.
That new D3s I’m lusting after? Yep, it’d be great. (And if anyone wants to gift me one, my birthday is coming up…!)
But that ticket to Rwanda/ Australia/ wherever… better.
Wow! Great post Emma. Inspirational to see that fire still burning in your heart.
*warning I think I waffled on in this reply and not sure I articulated clearly what I was trying to say but heyho.
I loved that post too.
If I relate it to one of my distant lives when I was a musician I made sure that I had professional equipment that the biggest bands in the world wouldn’t be ashamed of but I made sure that I didn’t constantly chase the newest piece of gear. My logic was that I needed a certain level of gear to be taken seriously and I wanted to not be able to blame the gear. If it sounded bad I wanted to know it was me that sounded bad.
So I think it is important to get your gear into a zone of usability and then get out and use it. The life experience and potential portfolio of getting out there is so much more valuable than new gear.
Picking up on the wedding photography I think you can either look at wedding gigs as a way to pay bills and gain experience or you can approach it as a creative experience. If you find it interesting and creative for you to shoot them then that will come through in the pictures. I do think that it’s key to know why your doing it and not lose sight of the end goal. In other words if the wedding gigs are paying for you to do the humanitarian shoots you probably should have a decent number of those types of projects too. Maybe for every x number of wedding gigs you need a shoot that represents your ultimate goal so it’s always progressing.
Thanks for the encouragement Jonny.
Matt –
Love the idea of what you’re suggesting, just not sure how that translates into practicality. I actually really enjoy shooting weddings, but it’s still secondary to the joy from doing humanitarian work. I’m going to have a look into what kind of projects I could get on the go here, without having to travel far away. If you have any ideas, do let me know!
In terms of gear, a chunk of profit from each piece of work goes towards that right now, as I’m still building up my kit. A better camera is on the list, and will be purchased in the near future. I think for me right now it’s trying not to long after kit for the wrong reasons. As they say, the best camera is the camera you’ve got on you. It’s learning to be totally at one with my camera (very zen of me!) so I know it inside out – I’m sure in the same ways you knew how your guitars, pedals and amps would react to every nuance you gave them. So yea, the camera is on the list, but it won’t overpower the desire to do something good with said camera.