The OM-D: A Sea Change, Part II

At the end of my last blog post, I found my writ­ing devolv­ing into a con­tra­dic­tory dis­cus­sion of vision and cre­ativ­ity vs. equip­ment. The first half was about the OM-D and how it rep­re­sents great tech­nol­ogy and oppor­tu­nity, and then went on to ram­ble and rant about how the equip­ment doesn’t really mat­ter. It didn’t make sense, as I was ram­bling on about how the cam­era doesn’t mat­ter after just talk­ing about all the rea­sons it DID mat­ter, and to me specif­i­cally! Indeed, there are con­tra­dic­tions, I think, for many pho­tog­ra­phers, as we bal­ance the craft with the art. Many of us are gear heads, and many of us like the promise of new tech­nol­ogy. We fol­low the siren song of res­o­lu­tion, and clean high ISOs, and fast and accu­rate aut­o­fo­cus. Instead of hav­ing one, incred­i­bly long, con­tra­dic­tory, and unfo­cused blog post, I fig­ured I’d split it into two, and dis­cuss both aspects.

Here’s where it started:

I have read sev­eral arti­cles recently that assert that con­trary to the old adage that gear doesn’t mat­ter, some­times it does (spe­cial­ized pho­tog­ra­phy like sports or bird­ing, etc). I feel like they’re kind of miss­ing the point of the adage, though. They’re miss­ing the essen­tial truth of the mat­ter. Sure, the equip­ment matters–with the OM-D, I can take it with me when the DSLR is imprac­ti­cal, and still get great pho­tos. When the OM-D is imprac­ti­cal, I can take my iPhone and use that. When I’m get­ting paid to shoot, I make sure as hell to bring the best and biggest guns I have with me to make sure I sat­isfy my clients. The equip­ment mat­ters, no doubt.

In the end, though, it all comes down to your vision. Recently I saw a story in Sports Illus­trated where the lead photo–a full-page, glo­ri­ous color photo–had been taken using Hip­sta­matic on an iPhone (it was this arti­cle, but the online ver­sion doesn’t have the photo). It was a por­trait, and not a peak action shot, but still… tech­ni­cally,  you can shoot sports with an iPhone. The lim­its of your gear force you to make deci­sions, com­pro­mises, choices. Just because you can’t shoot some­thing the way it is cus­tom­ar­ily shot because of some gear limit, doesn’t mean you CAN’T shoot it.

The arti­cle I read asserted that only when you are begin­ning pho­tog­ra­phy does the equip­ment truly not mat­ter. I think that’s hog­wash. We are all con­strained or lim­ited by something–budget, equip­ment, size, what­ever. the OM-D (see, even though I’m ram­bling, I’m bring­ing it all back together!) and the 5D3 together remind me that I didn’t always have the big guns that I do now, but I still man­aged some­how. Four or five years ago, I couldn’t shoot at f/1.2 and ISO 12,800, but I still man­aged to shoot some wed­dings and make some peo­ple happy with mar­ginal ISO 1600 and f/2.8.  I don’t plan to go try to shoot an SI cover with my OM-D, but really, who’s to say I couldn’t? Who’s to say I couldn’t totally re-imagine how sports should be shot? Who’s to say you couldn’t, or shouldn’t? (I am in no way imply­ing that I’m smart enough to re-invent these things, just that I object to the naysay­ers who say CAN’T, DON’T, and WON’T a lot).

Embrace the lim­i­ta­tions of your gear, and know that those lim­its will always be pushed fur­ther and higher and longer. The march of tech­nol­ogy will still go on, and in the end, has very lit­tle impact on your pho­tog­ra­phy or your vision. It may make some things eas­ier, or more pos­si­ble, but no one will be look­ing at your pho­tos fifty years from now, won­der­ing what focal length or shut­ter speed you used. Or look­ing at that SI story and think­ing it might have been bet­ter if you’d used your DSLR.

If any­one at all is look­ing at your pho­tos in fifty years, it’s because you had some­thing mean­ing­ful to con­vey. You had a vision, you had a pur­pose, you had some­thing to share that no one else did, or pre­sented it in a way no one else had. You pre­sented the world as you saw it, altered by your assump­tions, con­vic­tions, aes­thet­ics and whims. You showed what you thought was beau­ti­ful, or impor­tant, or worth­while to photograph.

Go work on that. Go develop that vision. Go indulge that curios­ity, that desire to take pho­tographs of things to see how they look pho­tographed. Sure, if you want to get down to brass tacks and be lit­eral and uber-specific, gear mat­ters some­times. But really, it doesn’t and it shouldn’t. Because if you look hard enough and open your mind to the pos­si­bil­i­ties, you’ll find a pho­to­graph or two in there.