Earlier this week I dropped in on a photography forum in which the OP (original poster) suggested that the causal correlation between buying Really Expensive Gear and producing better photographs was weak. Oh, yeah!

Here is a slightly adapted version of my contribution to that discussion:

I’ve thought quite a bit about why so many “photography enthusiasts” seem to be much more interested in acquiring photography gear than in making photographs. Reasons might include:

1. Equipment is necessary in order to make photographs, so acquiring some is not unimportant.
2. Because it is, frankly, easier to write about gear in definitive (or seemingly definitive) ways than to write competently about photographs, there is much more written about gear – and newbies should be forgiven for having a false impression that the gear one has is more important than the photographs one makes.
3. Almost all of us do find the equipment fascinating to some extent. Some grow past this, but for some it ends up being more about possessing expensive and supposedly high-end stuff than anything else. (Photography is not the only area where this occurs.)
4. Because people more often encounter photographers when they are operating cameras than when they are exhibiting photographs, they associate the gear with the activity more than they associate photographs with it.
5. Some want to look like (what they imagine) professional photographers (look like).
6. Some are told, before they have enough experience to question it, that they must have “the best” gear if they are going to make photographs. I’ve actually seen rank beginners struggling with $6000 bodies and sets of L primes or big white telephotos… for their family vacations.
7. Some love to shop.

[The OP’s] notion that the causal correlation between expensive gear and photographic skill or quality is weak is one that I would agree with.

I think that a “cure” for the counter-productive obsession with gear at the expense of photographs may be to do everything in your power to focus on photographs – not photography, not cameras, not lenses, etc. If you are not or do not become passionate about producing photographs, then you might want to consider a different hobby. :-)

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