I know I’m guilty of it.
A longing stare. A feeling of lust. A sideways glance followed by a knowing smile and nod of the head. Yeah… that’s it. Work it… WORK IT… WORK IT!!
I confess it doesn’t happen every time. It’s not like I’m some sort of perv after all. Yet it happens often enough, but can you really blame me? I mean, it’s the one thing I know pretty well even though it has little bearing on anything. But some days I just can’t help it.
Camera envy.
I’m out some place, snapping pics with my trusty Canon 40D, when along comes some stranger. A stranger with a bigger & badder camera. Maybe it’s a Nikon D300s. Mabye a Canon 7D. On occasion it’s a Canon 5D Mark II. And often, but not always, they have some hot-ass piece of glass attached to their luscious camera. Some sort of crazy fixed f/2.8 or a monster 400mm prime.
Damn…
I just want to touch it. I want to stop them and say “Hey… do you mind if I take a hit off that 7D?” or “Can I lick that lens?” But it’s embarrassing. Embarrassing to look and feel so needy. Embarrassing because I know the quality of a photographer’s work has far less to do with the equipment than it does anything else.
Granted, quality equipment can help take & make better pictures. That f/2.8 lens allows for options one doesn’t readily have when shooting at f/5.6. A better & faster auto-focus system can mean the difference between getting the shot and not getting it. But that pricey and delicious equipment doesn’t make one a better photographer, just one able to more readily capture a given situation.
But all that knowledge and understanding means little when I’m out in the field and I come across some photographer strutting about with their D300s in hand or their 7D attached to a monopod. Nope. All my careful thinking and understanding goes right out the proverbial window and I find myself smitten. Wanting to touch. To caress. To ask things like “Does it increase your sexual potency? Do you have to fight off the women with a stick? Did it cure your arthritis?”
I feel like a fucking junkie…
Forkboy's Photographic Travails 