Like many people here, I'd always been a modest owner of camera gear. I had some nice cameras, but never more than two at a time, and they always took the same lens mount. Then digital arrived and film cameras became worth whatever someone would give for them, which wasn't much for the most part.
Also like other people here, I saw this as my opportunity to try out cameras I'd previously wanted to own, which turned into buying cameras I specifically disliked but were too cheap not to try, then purchasing cult cameras, then each model from a range and so on down the rabbit hole. Like all consumption, the pleasure is in wanting and the satisfaction of owning is generally short lived and ultimately unsatisfying. The unavoidable conclusion from this experiment in acquisition, is most cameras work just fine and it's difficult to tell the output apart, at least between camera formats and lens types. No one is creatively limited by the camera they use.
Someone commented recently that there's more to photography than taking pictures, but if there is I can't see it. I lack the completist gene that finds satisfaction purely in ownership, and view a camera that isn't being used to take photographs a somewhat sad prospect. I imagine their original owners excitedly taking pictures on the first weekend after purchase, and the idea that their object of desire now exists simply to fill a gap in my collection between the Mark IV and the Mark VI model slightly depressing.
One of the problems with photography has always being how to show work. You can make prints and hang them on a wall, or display them to your friends at a photoclub, or try for a show at a gallery. I do hang my framed photographs in my home, but viewers are limited to people who pass through the house and they mostly serve as background. The opinions of photoclub members aren't always well informed or neutral, and galleries generally have a long waiting list and for small venues footfall is limited. The alternatives can lead to a sense of ennui, even pointlessness. Then I discovered the photo book.
For anyone who hasn't made a photobook, the prospect can be daunting. First you have to select images you consider your best, then put them into some kind of order that shows them to advantage or tells a story. You have to work out how you're going to display them, which offers an almost infinite variety of ways, and get on top of the company's software. You can go one to a page, with annotation or without. You can leave facing pages bare, put a series onto a double page spread, have a frame around them or let the shot bleed over the edges. Picture cover or plain? What's your title going to be? The choices are endless and rules are few. For film photographers there's the additional challenge of sc@nning and spotting the shots, and making sure the tones or colours balance across the work. It can be a time consuming business. Last week I spent four days of a holiday compiling and uploading my latest photobook, grabbing a few hours sleep here and there, completely absorbed in the process. The book arrived through the post this morning, four days after I'd pressed send.
People spend far more time looking at a nicely bound, well printed photobook than any print I've made. They don't feel pressured in the same way as a slide show, and can spend as much or as little time on an individual image as they choose. They can take it away to look at if you let them, and if they like it enough you can order one of their own for them. Photobooks can be small or big, cheap or expensive, contain your photographic life's work, or a record of your day. For me, they say more about the state of my photography, where I'm going wrong or hitting the mark, than any other display format I've tried. Photobooks are totally results based, what matters are the images and how well they hang together, the camera they were taken on becomes no more than a tool to produce a tangible and lasting artefact, perhaps even an heirloom.
Photobooks have removed my GAS completely, and replaced in with another obsession, Book Acquisition Syndrome. Compiling photobooks really is very addictive, and much more rewarding than buying another body or lens.
Also like other people here, I saw this as my opportunity to try out cameras I'd previously wanted to own, which turned into buying cameras I specifically disliked but were too cheap not to try, then purchasing cult cameras, then each model from a range and so on down the rabbit hole. Like all consumption, the pleasure is in wanting and the satisfaction of owning is generally short lived and ultimately unsatisfying. The unavoidable conclusion from this experiment in acquisition, is most cameras work just fine and it's difficult to tell the output apart, at least between camera formats and lens types. No one is creatively limited by the camera they use.
Someone commented recently that there's more to photography than taking pictures, but if there is I can't see it. I lack the completist gene that finds satisfaction purely in ownership, and view a camera that isn't being used to take photographs a somewhat sad prospect. I imagine their original owners excitedly taking pictures on the first weekend after purchase, and the idea that their object of desire now exists simply to fill a gap in my collection between the Mark IV and the Mark VI model slightly depressing.
One of the problems with photography has always being how to show work. You can make prints and hang them on a wall, or display them to your friends at a photoclub, or try for a show at a gallery. I do hang my framed photographs in my home, but viewers are limited to people who pass through the house and they mostly serve as background. The opinions of photoclub members aren't always well informed or neutral, and galleries generally have a long waiting list and for small venues footfall is limited. The alternatives can lead to a sense of ennui, even pointlessness. Then I discovered the photo book.
For anyone who hasn't made a photobook, the prospect can be daunting. First you have to select images you consider your best, then put them into some kind of order that shows them to advantage or tells a story. You have to work out how you're going to display them, which offers an almost infinite variety of ways, and get on top of the company's software. You can go one to a page, with annotation or without. You can leave facing pages bare, put a series onto a double page spread, have a frame around them or let the shot bleed over the edges. Picture cover or plain? What's your title going to be? The choices are endless and rules are few. For film photographers there's the additional challenge of sc@nning and spotting the shots, and making sure the tones or colours balance across the work. It can be a time consuming business. Last week I spent four days of a holiday compiling and uploading my latest photobook, grabbing a few hours sleep here and there, completely absorbed in the process. The book arrived through the post this morning, four days after I'd pressed send.
People spend far more time looking at a nicely bound, well printed photobook than any print I've made. They don't feel pressured in the same way as a slide show, and can spend as much or as little time on an individual image as they choose. They can take it away to look at if you let them, and if they like it enough you can order one of their own for them. Photobooks can be small or big, cheap or expensive, contain your photographic life's work, or a record of your day. For me, they say more about the state of my photography, where I'm going wrong or hitting the mark, than any other display format I've tried. Photobooks are totally results based, what matters are the images and how well they hang together, the camera they were taken on becomes no more than a tool to produce a tangible and lasting artefact, perhaps even an heirloom.
Photobooks have removed my GAS completely, and replaced in with another obsession, Book Acquisition Syndrome. Compiling photobooks really is very addictive, and much more rewarding than buying another body or lens.