I stumbled via twitter across a blog a woman wrote about wedding photographers and their seemingly outrageous price packages, and after reading through (at the time) the 115 comments, I had to comment. I am not someone who typically comments on any blog. Though I read a good number of a wide variety of them, commenting isn’t something I do. While I will keep my opinions to myself here about her opinion on the subject, because it’s not why I am writing this, the comments from my fellow photographers upset me more than her post did.

I am wondering more about when photography became such an equipment driven field. When did it become about who has the best camera, the best lens, the best bag. Who started this trend? Did it start when the megapixel war began? We’ve all come to realize (or at least those of you who cared to begin with are beginning to realize) that megapixels don’t matter as much as you thought. So, to continue on, who started the equipment war. I’m not really asking. I’m just stating.

This is the relevant part of what I said, and I am fully expecting a backlash for this, but it’s ok. I can back myself up:

One point I want to bring to light that is really, really bothering me in reading over all the comments here from the other photographers who have commented is the many, many remarks about equipment, and I will probably get a lot of off screen backlash for it, but they continually mention a “pro has this much money worth of gear and this expensive brand of camera and a canon MK II this and Nikon d that and blah blah blah” and I’m sorry to all you other photographers out there who think it’s the equipment that make you the photographer you are, and the photoshopping you have to do after that makes your images pop out of the world and stand out but it is not. If your images need that much work out of camera, then you are kidding yourselves. You should NOT be spending hours upon hours in post-processing. And whoever it was that said post-processing was non-existent in darkroom days, go back to photography school and retake the film class. It is not the camera that makes the photographer, it the person that makes the photograph. The camera is just a tool, just as a paintbrush is a tool for the painter, and a pencil is for the person who draws and a voice for the singer. It is no difference. Photographers are artists, regardless of what their chosen field of photography is.

I’ve read many a story about the world’s most top renowned fashion photographer using a point and shoot. He obviously doesn’t care to lug around the most newly released DSLR Canon or Nikon has given him to test for next weeks release with a hefty price tag of $14,000, with the lens that matches the price tag. So why should you wedding photographers, or landscape photographers care, because we all know he’s more famous than you ever will be, and admit it, his shooting matter is way more beautiful too, and he needs the best gear he can get. So why doesn’t he use it if you have to?

Obviously he works in a far more controlled situation than a wedding is, and his needs are very different. But I am not a dumb woman either. I know how to kneel, how to squat, I also know how to run in to get close to my subject, so I don’t really need a huge telephoto lens. I also know how to back far away fast too to get that wide angle, so there goes that lens. Do you really need 5 of them? Do you really NEED everything you insist you do? Have you tried to push yourselves to go without all that you use as a crutch, have you tried to step outside of your gear comfort zones and limit yourselves with? I’m not suggesting shooting a wedding with a point and shoot, but how much of what you use or have is a necessity.

How often do you just go through the motions, switching this with that and just click click click. Slide this here and slide that there. Pop the lens this way or that depending on the light. How much do you actually think when you are doing what you do? Honestly. Be honest with yourselves. I think the comments on the original post here speak more loudly about what this field has become than anything else could ever say about it. It has become less an artform and more of an industry and it shouldn’t be. When the focus becomes about business, and not the art, you have lost your focus, your passion, and your work reflects that, and that is when you end up in someone’s trash bin, and not their binder.

Pass Christian Mississippi

This photograph was taken in August of 2005 in Pass Christian, Mississippi. It was shot with a Canon Powershot 3.2 mp point and shoot, in a moving vehicle doing 50mph. There was very minimal post processing. In other words, I upped the contrast, because that’s the ONLY processing I do on my photographs. I am not the person to argue how equipment matters. I have many, many more photographs taken with what many professional photographers would call “crap gear” that are on par with this photograph and above. I have sold prints, I have been hired. I have made some money doing this. (Never much mind you, but I have never really tried either.) My clients and customers know exactly how big their prints can go. They never need or want bigger than an 11×14, they are happy with that. My last camera could go bigger, but there was never a need for it. But it was still a camera you would have considered crap. It’s not the camera that makes the photographer, it’s the person holding it.

So. I’ve wasted ridiculous amounts of time the past few days looking at a lot of stuff, a lot of twitter (which is completely unrelated but still amusing, absurd and entertaining anyways). I’ve also spent a lot of time brainstorming, creating in my mind, doing mundane things that drive me mad (slacking on them too) like laundry and such, and now I am only going to say..

There is NEW STUFF COMING.

Here, and at Chasing Cornfields will both be having new looks. (By they way, I am definitely suffering a moment of “WhatintheworldwasIthinking!”) There will be new stuff to look at here, to read, to bore yourselves to death with. (Uhm not at CC, but here, for the boredom part anyways. -laughing-)

So. My announcement of the day.

Now, off to create, complete; wash, dry and fold.

My life runs in this chaotic rhythm and has for years now, that seems to work for my family, even if I want to run away from it sometimes and just hide somewhere quiet and breathe quietly for a little while. There are many things that I should be doing right now. Probably not right at this moment since it’s 9:22pm on a Sunday evening, but right at this moment in my life. There are always little things to take my time, day to day things that take little moments, but amass an enormous amount of accumulated time when added up together.

Instead, I am swalled up in tangled up piles of yarn. Different kinds of yarn. All of it tangled, and none of it started that way. Some came in skeins, some came already made into something that I have decided to reclaim into something else. All has ended up in some degree of entanglement. I think it is a sign. That yarn hates me. Or that the Universe is trying to tell me something. I haven’t figured out what yet, because I continue to harass the yarn and untangle it, and hang it, ball it, and move along to the next batch.

That pretty shiny stuff up there is made of bamboo and is the softest to date. But up until today was my most hated. Today, I was in the process of unraveling a Gap sweater, when it tangled. Worse than the bamboo dared, and now it is my nemesis. I don’t know why I am bothering all this messing around with the yarn. The job I had so fortunately acquired in this wretched economy has turned into one terrible flop, for no lack of trying on my part. The job itself could have been, many things. But well, I will be polite and cordial and respectful to my still employer since I have yet to give my resignation because I am a baby and haven’t gone in to tell them I can no longer work for them because no one who does not already advertise with them does not want to advertise with them. It does not matter what I tell them, beg them, cajole them, or how young and cute I am. Substance matters in a situation like this, and in this instance, their problems are bigger than sales revenue.

So I waste multitudes of hours in yarn. Yet, for now, I have nothing knit. Because, it is too pretty in a ball. Like this website, has sat idle for months now, because I made it this beautiful calm, peaceful place and I don’t want to wreck it. Which in these few months of chaos that I can not even begin to spell out here in a few words, I have come to realize is my deeper unresolved issue. I am very good at starting these wonderful things, but I don’t follow through, because heaven Forbid if I do not finish something to it’s absolute perfection like my obsessive compulsive perfectionism control freak personality type needs it to be, but it’s ok, I’m cool too if everything falls to pieces, really, I can handle it. And I can. I’ll just absolutely neglect this.  My photography. My new found yarn love. And whatever obsessive obsession I happen to have at the moment, which could range from researching the compounds in dirt to finding out what Phineas and Ferb did on last weeks episode. I’m trying not to neglect me anymore, despite the interruptions.

This was meant to be a “photogallerywebshowcaseblogsite” in it’s inital inception, but Aug ‘09 my camera bit it. It’s great for snapshots, but hey, who needs another blog full of snap shots right? I’m not about those. I have yet been unable to replace it, and have since decided the road I was running down with my photography isn’t the one I want to go anyways, so it’s worked out for the best. I still miss having a camera like anything in this world, but I have a pretty decent camera phone that will work for what I want for this space.  After a 6 month hiatus with not taking a single photo (and no, that’s not much of an exaggeration) I’m finding myself taking a few here and there with my phone. And find myself wanting to blog them. I found an Android Wordpress App for my phone, once I work the kinks out, there may hopefully be more here. Since I am also a lazy blogger, and emailing photos to myself, then uploading them, is a pain and too much work, if I can send them straight to my blog from my phone, it’ll work out. Hopefully, if anyone even reads this anymore, you will be seeing more here.

Oh, just a tidbit, I dreamt about dancing. For the first time in a million years.

I’ve decided to rework the website, again.

I know, I’m sorry.

Regular followers will probably be upset and slightly disgruntled that I have yet again redone this. But it just didn’t feel right. It was too much of one thing and not enough of another, and with that, I have come to this.

I have reached a point where there are steps I need to take to reach a goal I have set myself, and for the vagueness I apologize, but I do hope you will bear with me and watch this new stage in my life- personally and professionally unfold into something it has yet to be.

Welcome to my little world. Please enjoy all that you will find here. I am very broad and expansive person (and not in size please if you will). I enjoy many, many things in life and hope to fill my space in the internet with the thoughts, musings and curiosities that plague me.

It might at times get chaotic, it might get quiet, it might be calm. I am not sure how this is going to play out yet, but am very excited about all of it.

So I saw The Lovely Bones last night and after reading the books months ago I was very excited about this. The book was heart wrenching in unexpecting ways as was the film. Both are highly recommended as there were things in the book that give more character depth to the story that were left out of the movie.

So, I read-  a lot. I go through anywhere from four to five books in any given week, and always have many thoughts I’d like to share on these words that fill my mind, but nowhere to share them. So this is a strong part of the redesign of my webworld, because I wanted somewhere to share. I even put feelers out for a book discussion group locally, that hit a brick wall before it even got started. No one was interested. I still can’t quite believe it– moving on now.

I’ve a long list of books already read, and will perhaps go through some of them but I believe it will be mostly new books I’ve not read. Except Bel Canto, and The Shadow of the Wind. I will write about those. Everyone should read those two books if they never read anything else.

I won’t however be starting with the book I am currently reading. It’s about twitter, but please don’t tell. I’m a twitter dummy and am determined not to fall into the old-age trap of becoming confused about modern new things and letting them slip by the wayside, so I am learning to tweet, and what the fuss is all about, albeit later than anyone else; but better late than never.

and only sometimes, do I get a bug to write something. Generally it is a fictional piece, and it will go here.

I know these -this is what this is for- posts are slightly aggravating, but it is for my benefit at this point as I am a rather scattered person and if I don’t make a note to myself I will forget.

and still I have a migraine.