It's not about the ...

I had a recent discussion with a professional portrait photographer not too long ago about how the pure joy of taking pictures has very little to do with what kind of camera is used. She takes semi-candid, artfully posed photos, mostly of children, and she is finding gobs of success at having some of her images licensed. She uses a world-weary 35mm film camera, with a modest add-on flash and a modest zoom lens. The majority of her work is black and white.

Photography is like a lot of hobbies, in which many participants believe the latest and greatest camera will allow them to take better pictures. Now, part of that is true. A camera is a tool, and the proper tool for the job makes all the difference. For example, photographing sports requires a camera able to focus quickly and take bursts of images. At night, the camera needs a high flash sync speed to allow higher shutter speeds. In daylight and at night, a fast lens (large aperture) and appropriate combo of focal length/zooming capabilities is a must.

My first professional newspaper job required me to write and take photos. It was an old-school task, with a video display terminal (vintage late 1970s) and my grandmother's Olympus OM-1 (also from the late '70s) at the ready. We rolled our own b&w film into the small canisters, we developed the film, printed the prints and everything in between using caustic chemicals and a little luck. I later upgraded to a Canon Elan II 35 mm with a few nice lenses, but the process was the same. The joy of releasing the shutter (albeit not having to wind the film with my thumb), the pleasure of gently rocking a print in the developer and seeing it come to life, it remained the same. There's a little lost in the digital age (now I use a Canon digital and don't have a darkroom), but the taking of pictures itself is much the same. It's got little to do with the camera.

Before the Cutlet was born, we bought a small, cheap point-and-shoot digital. The camera basically sucks. Press the shutter and count to 10 before anything happens, so action shots are out. However, some of my favorite pics we've taken of the Cutlet were done so using that camera.

When it comes down to it, the person takes the photo using the camera. In my 10 or so years of newspaper experience, I've seen poor results with some pretty fancy equipment. It's about reaction time, having an artistic eye, enjoying the process and being in the right place at the right time. I think I took better pictures when the tool between my ears did most of the work. Using film meant I was also more careful about firing off the shutter for no reason.

Golf is a sport in which amateurs think they can buy their way to success. If their goal is fun, and stuff gives them pleasure, they are winners before they tee off. But if they want to be better golfers, it takes practice – not the latest set of clubs.

Bicycling offers a similar pursuit. There are enough gadgets to satisfy the most demanding cyclogeek. Speed cannot be bought, but the promise of it comes at a high price. The joy of just getting out and riding can be lost, too, in a flurry of high-speed pedaling. I would put my decade-old, beat-up mountain bike against any other bicycle in the world for its ability to take me to happy places. Insert nearly any physical activity or sport for bicycling, and it's easy to see how the fun can become lost in a stack of catalogs and maxed-out credit cards.

Blogging can fit the same mold, in that people do it for different reasons. They use all kinds of computers. They build all sorts of templates. They add all kinds of nifty bells and whistles. But when it comes down to it, blogging is merely a form of communication. Words (or photos, in the case of photoblogs) must tell some kind of story or mean something to someone, if only to the person who posts them. For me, blogging has been about getting words out there that used to be pent up, and later on it was about making fleeting connections with people far-flung and just up the street in a very casual and two-dimensional way. But – better or worse – I've always focused on words and a few photos rather than plug-ins and flashy graphics to get my points across. The jury's out to whether this is a worthwhile blog for others to read. It's been great for me.

In all these things I mention here, it's the people that matter. We use tools to have fun and get the job done, but the tools don't function on their own. We must look through the lens before releasing the shutter. We must decide which way to swing the club. The outdoors beckons, and we must answer its call. Something pops to mind, and we've got to log on to our blogs and actually produce something to see results.

I hope whatever your pursuit, you enjoy it for what it is. Don't let technology get in the way of having a great time. And don't believe that you need the next best thing to function. Just be yourself.