Before I delved in the whole photo world I was really into electronic music, yet another field dominated by boys and their toys. I spent hours keeping up on the latest gadgets, reading electronic music mags, and alone with Protools. Everyone I knew in the electronic music subworld was really focussed on creating on the best technical setup and using it to its full capabilities. Very little time was spent on artistic expression or coming up with creative ideas, instead it was all about figuring out what every possible different function on the Kurzweil synthesizer was. There’s a lot of similarities with the photo world and so I outline my top 5 downfalls of the technologically obsessed artist.
1. The techy artist spent all weekend reading reviews on the newest gadgets and didn’t take one photo.
2. The techy artist met two other techy artists and they spent their entire conversation arguing about Brand A vs Brand B and learned absolutely nothing about how or why the other person is an artist. (If another Canon user gets all up in my face about Nikon I am going to lose it.)
3. The techy artist looks at a photo and only sees the digital grain or the slight vignetting and then wonders for ten minutes about what exact model and gear it was taken with.
4. The techy artist is really really proud of his boring photo because he made it with his new $10,000 setup (or DIY setup that took 14 hours and 3 trips to Home Depot to create).
5. The techy artist has been so busy keeping up with the newest gear in all the newest magazines that he hasn’t read a non-gear related item in about 2 years.
Imagine if writers spent hours sitting around discussing which version of Microsoft is better for editing their drafts. I’m not saying technology isn’t important to photography. I’m just think it’s the first step on the ladder and that’s about it.