Imagine this: we’re side by side at a local pond, a thermos of coffee between us as the first light comes up. You’ve got your camera with a 24-105mm lens. I’ve got mine, too, but chose to bring my 300mm lens instead. As we set up, you say you wish now that you’d brought a longer lens.
“Funny,” I say, “I was just thinking the same thing,” though I was wishing for something shorter.
How many times has this scenario played out for you? You make choices, bringing one lens only to wish you had something else. If you have 400mm, you want 600mm, and if you have 600mm, you want 24mm. And just knowing that can make the choice painful, even paralyzing.
But here’s what I know: whatever you bring, you will make something of it, because that’s how creativity works.
Creativity works with what it has. What you lack will always force a constraint upon you and (here’s the benefit) force you into looking at the scene in a new way.
If we’re walking through the streets of Venice and I have a telephoto lens and you have a wide-angle lens, we will look for different things and see different possibilities in the very same scene; we’ll see in different ways because of the gear, not despite it. I will be looking wider, taking it all in, trying to find order in the chaos. You will be looking for tighter scenes, scenes that play well when compressed and cropped tight.
The lens you have will force you to say no to photographing some scenes in ways to which I am eagerly saying yes, and vice versa.
Back to the pond. We’ve settled down in the grasses, still wet with dew, and just as the first licks of that golden light hit the pond, a loon emerges from the reeds, probably flushed out by our presence, and we both raise our cameras. The loon takes off, a belaboured affair with a lot of splashing. You, having accepted your limits, photograph the whole pond, shrouded in fog, the loon only a detail in the larger image, which will tell a bigger story than what I’m making. My image is much tighter and you can see every drop; there’s detail and mood, and it says both less—and more—than your photograph. The images are so different from each other. Not necessarily better, or worse. Different.
This same scene plays out in similar ways, minus the loons, on every safari I lead. You will not bring the same gear I brought, and vice versa. But we’ll both make something of it, and probably something wonderful, so long as we’re not sidetracked or distracted by our constraints, but allow them to help us see in new ways.
It is usually (maybe always) easier and more productive to change our thinking than it is to waste that energy wishing we could change our lenses.
If we’re willing to have this conversation with it, the gear we have says, “OK, you have what you have: long, wide, fast, slow, whatever. What are you going to do with it?” It’s an invitation to see differently. The bear is too close, and all I’ve got is my stupid 600mm! Maybe now’s the time to isolate the details in the claws, or explore the textures of the fur. Maybe it’s not about the bear at all, but the salmon in his mouth.
I don’t know what you photograph or what kind of gear you’ll have with you as we sit together, but I do know I’ve yet to find the scene that has only one way of looking at it, or a scenario where there isn’t a dozen ways to photograph.
I wonder how our perspective would change, or what kind of energy we’d bring to our work, if we gave as much thought (or more) to the different ways of looking at a scene than to the gear we choose. Different gear means different possibilities, but eventually, we hit the limits of those choices. Accepting this—and embracing it—is a way forward into greater creativity.
You can’t always change your gear, but you can always change your thinking.
For the Love of the Photograph,
David
The biggest challenges for most photographers are not technical but creative. They are not so much what goes on in the camera but what goes on in the mind of the person wielding it. Light, Space & Time is a book about thinking and feeling your way through making photographs that are not only good, but truly your own. It would make an amazing gift for the photographer in your life, especially if that’s you. Find out more on Amazon.
Comments
My grandfather was a really keen photographer who used a Rolleiflex TLR with a fixed focus ‘normal’ lens. He taught me loads about photography but most relevant here was that (most) photographers have legs, so they can walk towards or away from the subject, arguing that you don’t need a zoom or any other lenses to capture what you can see.
Admittedly there can be a long walk to get the right framing where a 24mm or 600mm lens could do the job, and walking up a mountainside or photographing moving subjects may at times be impractical (he did still life, portraits and landscape so things didn’t move much). But he had a good point.
However, he didn’t see the situation where the best view is from the middle of the pond!
Thanks for chiming in, Pete. Your grandfather was on time something. Moving your feet can change so much in a scene, and do what lenses can’t. But it’s important to remember our lenses can also do what moving our feet can’t, affecting the relationship of foreground to background, changing angle of view, and exaggerating the energy of lines. The old saying “zoom with your feet” sounds pretty good, but it lacks nuance and ignores a whole other side of the picture-making equation.
Hi David,
Great article once again. I am currently shooting with X100VI (35mm fixed focal length) and it has been one of the most creative period of my photography. The constraints are what make creativity come alive. You no longer think of equipment you just think of ways to make the photograph happen. For sure there will be cases where you will not be able to make the photograph at all, but for an amateur photographer as myself and for 99% of the time I have no issue. I know that I only speak as an amateur but I am pretty sure that a pro photographer like yourself would have no issue with one lens only. Even with the X100VI you could make great wildlife photographs. Imagine if instead of your Sony you used X100VI remotely. We are only limited by our own minds, our cameras and lenses are far more capable than we will ever need them to be.
I absolutely agree. And so true. Also, as Jay Maisel has pointed out, some of us have telephoto eyes and others have wide angle eyes.
And some of us learn to see the possibilities in both. 🙂
Great article and so true. Also, as Jay Maisel has pointed out, some of us have telephoto eyes and others have wide angle eyes.
I do enjoy your insightful articles – thank you for taking the time to write them.
I’ve been shooting since somewhere in the 80’s and followed a curve of one film camera (Nikon FE and later FE2) and two lenses, simply because I could not afford to buy any more. Then came the 2000’s digital era and I’ve been guilty of GAS and hoarding. While I was strong enough to haul around a huge bag of gear, that was all well and good – however now that I’m older, I am much more selective about what to carry (also, being in South Africa, it’s never the best idea to flaunt expensive looking stuff).
Many is the time that I leave behind the Z6ii and Zeiss lenses but just take along a Fuji X-T20 with a TTArtisan 23mm manual lens. This gives me time to think and compose and always come home with a good haul of pictures.
To get back to your original point : I remember about 20 years ago doing a paid shoot and being in such a flummox, that I mistook one lens for another while packing my bag and ended up at the venue kicking myself for having the ‘wrong’ lens. Guess what? It all worked out okay! I used what I had and that taught me to work with what you’ve got and *make* it work.
HI David. Great article. I always appreciate your push to be creative with what you have, to explore, and have fun. Many thanks.
Have you done an article or what you be interested in doing and article on how you work with your laptop and your desktop using LR? I mostly use a PC desktop and have an iPad that enjoy reviewing my LR collections on. I am considering getting a laptop for travel. Do you have the same collections on both devices? Do you just use the laptop when away and then download your collections into your desktop at home? Is there a way to use LR mobile on a laptop to view collections but not link everything through the cloud? Hope this gives you an idea of what I am struggling with. Any info would be helpful if you have the time.
Hi Doug! It’s been a while since I unpacked my approach to LR. I only use one machine now, a relatively powerful MacBook Pro. My library lives on this machine, though most of my images are on a big RAID unit on my desk. When I travel I don’t need access to those images. So when I shoot, I import to portable SSD drives into the main library and when I get home I just move (in Lightroom!) the files from the portable drives to the big RAID drive. Easy peasy. I don’t use LR Mobile, just LR CC, so I’m not much help there, though I do sync some of my collections to be avaiable on my phone. That’s the extent of my Mobile use. The guy to listen to on all this stuff is Brian Matiash – https://www.matiash.com/
You help me so much David, in this journey of understanding the ways of using these tools.
For me, first it was a camera, then a camera and zoom lens. Now a camera body with its nuances and lenses that I am slowly coming to terms with.
I was stuck at the spot of understanding each lens and the frustration of how to decide which to take. You have moved more forward again.
Thank you.
Margaret
I’m thrilled I can help, Margaret. Amazing how far we can get in a journey of small, consistent steps!
Powerful words that hit home hard. It’s funny – I’ve been wishing for a couple more lenses for my bag because, you know, “I could take much better images if I only had this.” And then this email lands in my inbox and I’m like, “Ouch.”
But this is what I needed to hear. I needed that push to get out and use what I have to create images I’m proud of; to adjust my vision and get creative. As the old saying goes, “It’s not the gear that makes the photographer, it’s the photographer that makes the gear.”
Thanks for giving me that push.
You’re welcome, Sammie. Different gear is less likely to help us make better images but it certainly can open possibilities for different images. I just bought a macro lens for the first time in many years, and I have no idea what I’m going to do with it but I’m excited about the possibilities!
Having constraints is one of the best ways to foster creative thinking. Hitchcock did this with his movies. Rope had only one cut. Rear Window had just two sets. The Birds had no music. Hitchcock placed restrictions on himself to enhance his storytelling. As I get older, I realize that bringing too much gear can be cumbersome, it also gets in the way of being in the moment! Who else hates a sore back when trying to get a great shot? I don’t need that kind of distraction!
Constraints are everything! I’m just packing the truck now for two weeks of bear photography up north and I’m packing everything. But when I get there I’d be surprised if I used more than two bodies and two lenses. I just tend to settle into a rhythm and enjoy the simplicity of that. Much less fussing around to change my thinking rather than changing my lenses!
An excellent article David. Many of us are guilty of going out with an arsenal of lenses but don’t “see the wood for the trees”. One of my best learnings is to go out with just one lens and work with it, thinking not of the compositions that you can’t shoot but just the ones you can. Restriction leads to creativity.
Restriction leads to creativity. Exactly! Well put. That’s the theme here. If only we could all trust that.
This article totally resonates with me – there is always that lament not only about the lens you might have, but also the light, the weather etc….. So good to be reminded to think creatively rather than give up on creating an image. Thank you. Have you considered doing a similar article but where you show examples of the different lens pictures that were achieved. Just a thought
Thanks Nicola! That’s a great idea, but it sounds like a lot of work on my end. 🤪
It would be indeed xxx
I may have told this story before, so I’ll be brief (as I can). We live about 15 minutes from Busch Gardens, Williamsburg. In the summer they have a fireworks show every night. We would frequently go up just for the fireworks and sit in the parking lot to watch – a great spot. I would use a 200mm lens on a tripod to get right into the heart of the display. I called the project “Fireworks – An Inner Beauty”. One night we arrived and I discovered my tripod had been removed from the car. Since I was teaching an occasional class on creativity, I naturally sat down and pouted. After 5 minutes or so, I asked myself, what is the purpose of the tripod? It’s to hold the lens still so only the motion of the fireworks is recorded. But what if both the fireworks and the camera are moving? What would that look like? I decided to find out. Instead of coming back with 2 or 3 interesting shots, virtually every one of the 50 of so images were fantastic. Naturally, something I had never seen before. And a new project was born, “Fireworks – An Inner Beauty Abstracted”.
Charlie, that’s a great story. I love it. Amazing how a good pout can lead to great ideas if you let it run its course. 😉
A very good and timely reminder. Perhaps to play on a line from the Stones. You don’t always have the lens you want but when you slow down and create you find thay you have the lens that you need.
Wise words, if misquoted a little, from the Prophet Jagger. See you in a week!
Love, love, love the “nomad,” images!
Thanks so much for that, Tom. It’s been a while since I was in those communities in Northern Kenya. I miss them almost daily.
Perfect! I do it all the time, purposely go out with one particular lens, just to see what I will get that day, with the limitation of the lens I have chosen for the day. It’s a way to get really creative images, because of the limitation of the lens, makes you search and look.
So love this little essay. I recently picked up a Q2 and am forced to think in 28mm…. challenging, but so new and exciting!
AND…. so much lighter
Thanks,
Hank
Ooooh, the Q2. I have the original Q and what a camera! I could shoot for a month in India or Italy with only that one camera and be so happy.
Ah yes, that’s why I have both a fulkframe and an APSC camera.
I swop lenses between them depending on what I’m out to do.
At a safari in Kenya I had the 100-400mm ff lens on the APSC (= 150-600mm ff) and the 24- 70 mm ff lens on the fullframe.
For a street event the 16-35mm ff lens (= 24-52mm ff) on the APSC and a Lensbaby on the fullframe camera.
The drawback may be the f-number, while the advantage is less gear.
The setup provides two choices, which I find makes it easier to focus on subject and composition.
You gotta find what works! Once you settle on your modus operandi it’s just so much easier to re-direct your creative efforts to the important stuff, isn’t it?
I’ve been at this photo lark for about 50 years now. I’ve only ever had the right lens with me twice. And that day the battery ran out.
LOL. Best comment ever, Martin. 😂 Been there, done that! I’ll be chuckling all day about this.
I heartily agree. My wife and I leave soon for a trip up the eastern seaboard from NYC through Canada. I’m bringing a Fuji XT5, a couple short primes and a smallish telephoto. I know from experience that I’ll use the primes the most, especially the tiny Voigtlander 27 f/2. I am putting an old XT3 in the bag just in case. You never know.
I hope you have a great adventure, Rick. The last time I was in the Canadian Maritimes I brought it all (I was driving) and in the end I used my iPhone and my Leica Q with 28mm lens, nothing more. Had a blast and never felt the need to dig out the rest.
A very timely article – Our club is once again “gearing up” for a year of events and outings. And of course, for every outings, there’s that question, “What lens is best”. This article puts that debate to rest. And of course, I always enjoy your style of writing.
Thank you
Thanks, Rooney. It’s the eternal debate, isn’t it? My answer is: pick one and see what happens!
I used to carry a bunch of lenses with me, and sometimes I still do. But I found that having more lenses made me think too much about whether I had the “right” lens and less time looking for what I could do with the one on the camera. Now, I tend to put one lens on and “see” with it. Leaving the other choices behind forces me to pay more attention to the scene instead of second guessing my lens choice. Of course, if I were standing next to you looking at a bear, you can be sure I would be carrying the opposite lens instead of leaving it in the car!
“More lenses made me think too much” – exactly! All that creative effort wasted on “which lens should I use?” rather than on the creative use of the lens you’ve got on. Love your thinking on this, Tom.