The Online Photographer

There are all types of dorks, dweebs, nerds, weenies, geeks, and et cetera. There's little point in untangling all the definitions, even if only humorously.

But what I meant by "I'd feel like a dork" yesterday was one particular situation that personally makes me feel dorky. I would define that as being "ostentatiously over-equipped."

Bunny hill
When I was a kid, my family went on a ski vacation. I think the resort was Waterville Valley in New Hampshire, but I'm not positive now. In the locker room, getting our gear on—I had only gone skiing a couple of times before—there was a family that seemed to be "in the know." The father was talking loudly about the fine points of all the expensive equipment they had. (We were renting skis and boots, and were wearing our regular winter coats, which were not ski jackets.) They had all the latest everything. The man talked at length about all the virtues of his choice of skis (either K2 or Rossignol—one of those two he liked, the other one he didn't.) I have a picture in my head of the man in his mostly white ski suit. I thought, wow, these people are real skiers. They really know what it's all about.

At the time—and I hope I'm remembering the right resort—the first step to the ski lifts to all the runs was the bunny hill lift. Everyone went up that before either getting off there or continuing to the higher parts of the mountain. Well, I happened to find myself behind that dazzlingly well-outfitted family on the first lift, and assumed they would leave me behind when I got off at the first stop. But no. They all started down again from the top of the bunny hill! None of them could ski. Even the braggart father of the group didn't know what he was doing at all.

Later in the week, I encountered my friend Jeff K. at the lift, and we rode up together. I had met Jeff on the Freshman Week Outing Club trip at Dartmouth. He told me he'd been skiing since he was little; he was a member of the ski team and had won races all over New England. I said "must be nice to be that good at something," and he told me in a jaded tone of voice that learning been the fun part for him and he kinda wished he had it all to do over again. He said he envied me for having it all in front of me. (I didn't, of course. I've skied fewer than a dozen times in my life.) Anyway, Jeff was dressed in jeans and a poncho and had beat-up old skis and old-fashioned boots. I told him about the well-equipped Dad from the locker room and Jeff shook his head and said something like, "I'd rather surprise people than pretend I'm better than I am."

Anyway, that was my lesson.

Bulging bags full
Another memory along those lines: many years ago—it must have been the early '90s—my friend Kent P. invited me to the Michigan 400. He had pit passes. I took my trusty Leica M6 and 35mm Summicron, which I carried slung from my shoulder as always. It didn't get a single look—might as well have been invisible. (That was one of the things I liked about the M6.) Wandering around in the pit lanes before the race, it appeared that about every third male was equipped with camera gear. De rigeur was a large block-shaped camera bag carefully stuffed with bodies and many lenses, plus a tripod strapped on top. That seemed to be the fad, "fad" meaning that people look around at what everyone else is doing and mimic it. I shot a lot that day and got a lot of great shots, including portraits of A.J. Foyt and Niki Lauda (although the day was mainly notable for the shot that got away. I've told that story before). No one paid me the least little bit of attention. But as far as I could tell, none of the guys carrying the big bags took many pictures. As I watched him, one guy stopped, set his bag down, fished the camera out of the bag, looked for a lens, mounted it, then set up the tripod—in the middle of a sunny day!—appeared to take one picture, then reversed the whole process and put everything away again. It took ten minutes, or seemed like it. I took a picture of him doing it.

Then again, you schlepp what you need. Remember what Ansel Adams always said when people asked him what camera he used: "the biggest one I can carry!"

There's nothing wrong with a Z9 (I mean, look at that thing), and I'd use one if I wanted to or thought I needed it. No criticism of anyone else implied here. But given who I really am, carrying one around would probably feel like a form of posing for me, and I wouldn't feel comfortable doing it.

On the other hand
Oddly, the situation can be reversed if you're a professional. You want your equipment to say "I can do anything" and "I'm well equipped." At least if you deal with the public. I can tell you from experience that it's awkward to show up at a shoot with a camera that's not as good as the one your client owns!

Mike

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Featured Comments from:

Moose: "I like the circularity of this post. You start with a story about how 'pro' equipment may be in the hands of a tyro, then end with '...it's awkward to show up at a shoot with a camera that's not as good as the one your client owns!'

"I knew that guy! The one with old jeans and tired wooden skis—who flew down any mountain like an angel, occasionally spinning in a a circle, one ski up at a 45° angle, spraying snow in all directions. One day, he hit a hole or something, and broke one ski into matchsticks. Undeterred, he went into the shop and bought a pair of the best metal skis. This mediocre skier, having difficulty with the switch from not worn-out wooden to metal, suggested he start carefully. No point; he was immediately still the most beautiful, graceful skier on the hills. I asked him what he thought of the new skis. 'They're nice,' he said, laconically."

Mark Rouleau: "Your camera gearhead story reminds me of two similar events, both of which happenend in Canada.

The first is when I took the family to Dufferin Islands. This is a series of man-made islands in the Niagara River. Very pretty area. I was playing with the Sigma DP1. Really the forefather of the large-sensor, small form factor cameras that we have now.

As we were parking, I watched a man exit his car with his SO, and, in the parking lot, started posing her, firing off shot after shot with his DSLR. His background was the cement brick building that housed the washroom (you call them restrooms) to the park. I told my wife, I may not be a great photographer, but at least when I take your picture there's not a bathroom behind you.

Another time, at Niagara-on-the-Lake, I got up extra early to catch the sunrise. I got a lot of great pictures out of that one. The light was amazing, so I got not only a sunrise over Fort George, but some lovely shots at the beach of driftwood and rocks. As I was dancing around taking as many shots as I could while the light was still amazing, I noticed an older gentleman, standing stock still, with an expensive DSLR with a white Canon lens attached, so, probably some bucks. In the 30–40 minutes I was flitting from place to place, he stood in the exact same spot, never bending over or looking up, keeping the camera at eye level, occasionally rotating it from side to side, no more than 45 degrees horizontally at most, but always on the same plane, shooting across the water. I did stop to look to see what was so interesting over there, but even with my telephoto, I couldn't see anything of interest. He was still there when I left. I hope he got good pictures of whatever it was he was after."

Soeren Engelbrecht: "This summer, our family went to the Faroe Islands (Situated in the North Atlantic)—in part to experience the amazing birds (like this one, which I was fortunate to catch myself). We went on a boat trip to the island of Mykines along with other tourists, many of whom were carrying large cameras and lenses. I particularly noted one lady with a Canon DSLR and a huge zoom (200–600mm or similar) due to two things: a). The bucket-size lens hood remained reverse-mounted for the whole trip b.) She probably had the camera on 'green mode,' because every time she tried to photograph birds on a dark cliff from the boat, the built-in flash popped up and fired."

Thomas Basista: "Wow! Talking about the very thing I saw Saturday. The local watershed association dedicated a new kayak/canoe access to the river. Basically a low-key, local event. No more than 30 people there. I was using my Panasonic FZ80 This guy shows up wearing a leather shoulder harness in 90-degree weather. There was a Nikon hanging from the harness on each hip, like a pair of pistols on a movie gunfighter. While most people were taking snaps with their phones, the camera slinger seemed to just be walking around. I did not see him take a single shot. I guess he just wanted to play photographer."

Mike Peters: "Re 'Oddly, the situation can be reversed if you're a professional. You want your equipment to say "I can do anything" and "I'm well equipped." At least if you deal with the public. I can tell you from experience that it's awkward to show up at a shoot with a camera that's not as good as the one your client owns!' The reality is, most of my clients own phones to take photographs. I've been shooting pro work with lowly Micro 4/3 gear for over 10 years now and nobody seems to notice or care. If your photographs don't make the case for you, then maybe you're in the wrong profession. My motto is use the gear that sets you free and is a joy to use. It's not the camera that makes the photo, it's the meat sack behind it."

adam: "I do user research consulting in very technical fields, and a big part of my job is to boil the findings from all the interviews I do down into some key points the client can act on. A few years ago I came across a piece of wisdom I try to keep in mind: 'The beginner makes things complex in order to demonstrate their expertise. The expert makes things simple in order to demonstrate their expertise.'"