A
few weeks ago my wife and I went to an old friend’s house for
dinner, conversation, and to look at some of our host's
recent photographs. Some of the images were made in a place
where I have never done any photography. The images were
excellent, and inspiring enough that I am sure to go there
in the future. The photographs were made on film with a camera
that was manufactured in the 1980s.
I
still own a Minolta SRT 201 and a couple of lenses that I bought
back in the mid 1970s. A few years ago my wife ran several rolls of Provia 100F
through it, and the resulting transparencies looked great
under a loupe. If those images were printed and hung on a wall, no one would suspect they were made with a thirty year old
camera.
.
In the midst of the digital revolution, with new cameras
hitting the market at a record pace, it’s easy to get wrapped
up in mega-pixels and lose sight of the fact that photography is
simply about making images. It doesn’t matter what camera you
use. The latest and greatest
camera can make lousy images and an old one can produce true
works of art. Light, composition, and creativity do not come in
a box with a price tag attached. This fact is the great
equalizer in photography, and that's something every photographer
should remember.
Happy
shooting!
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