The scene out my front door never gets old! Taking pictures with my iPhone never gets old either. All images taken right outside my home, and with that iPhone! Wish I could convince my students how creative they really can be with just there little camera phone. They get stuck thinking a big fancy camera is necessary to take a beautiful picture for their own pleasure.
Sure, as a professional you must have professional tools to do the job. However, to be a creative person who enjoys creating beautiful images – you only need your mind’s eye and imagination. From there you do the best with what you’ve got. That’s how I got my own start in this field. I did not set out to be a professional photographer like many of my colleagues, who took out loans, went in debt, etc. to have the equipment.
That simply was never an option. The only option was learning to be a photographer with whatever I had available to take an image with. In the early days that began with a Kodak Instamatic 100, and a Kodak Trimlite Instamatic 38! Anyone else out there remember those?!? It gets better, I won a Kodak Fisher Price 110 Camera at the New York State Fair back in the ’80s!! I’ll never forget the house-hold choirs my mother made me do to earn development of those pictures.
The camera that really helped photography find me was my Canon G9! I was traveling about the globe and all I really had room for was something small that shot a high quality image with manual controls. Man, I miss that little camera. I use to describe it as a “pug.” You know, like the big dog in a little dog’s body. The Canon G9 and it’s predecessors are like having a DSLR stuffed into a point shoots small body.
Sometimes size does matter when you need to pack your life into a knapsack and one carry-on. However, I will end on saying that as a professional who is responsible for photographing once-in-a-lifetime events like a college graduation or wedding – I’ll never underestimate the value in having my professional “rig” to count on. It’s heavy. Makes my shoulders and back wish I had a standing appointment with a massage therapist. It’s reliable. It’s super durable (fell down a hill just the other day and the camera held up better than my phone!)
As a professional, I never leave home without the big camera and all it’s gadgets. As an artist, I love creating images and really don’t care how, as long as I can!
