Photography Is Never About Equipment

It is good to see some non-equipment posts get some attention here. The vast majority of people come to this Blog looking for information on equipment. Almost no one comes here for anything else. So when I see recent posts on a train derailment, ducks and elk get some attention, that makes me glad.

Country Elk #1 - Stallion Springs, California

People seem to think that a better camera, lens or software package will get them better photographs. Nonsense! Photography is about vision and the decisive moment, and nothing else. You can craft great images with a home-built camera if you want to. It has nothing to do with equipment.

Curious Duck - Tehachapi, California

The photographs you see here in this post were created with what some would call (and have called) sub-par cameras, using sub-par "kit" lenses, and post-processed using free software. Does that matter? No. But it does demonstrate that what is in the photographer's mind is far more important than what is in the photographer's hands.

Train Derailment - Tehachapi, California

Unfortunately, most people don't understand this, and they spend hours and hours trying to find out the small, insignificant differences in equipment. They fail to understand that cameras are devolving. So in order to drive traffic to this Blog (in hopes that someone will stumble upon the meat and potatoes here), I have to post about equipment--that is what people want to read. That is why I'm thankful to all who have visited my other pages, unconcerned about equipment.

If You Give A Dog A Donut...

I meant to post this a while ago, but never got around to it. Some friends of mine had a donut birthday party for their son. They also have a blog, and posted about the party.

If You Give A Dog A Donut - Tehachapi, California

I brought along a camera, plus played around with a couple of cameras that others had brought. A couple of those images made it onto their blog. The photograph above was one of the images that I captured.

Through The Lens - Stallion Springs, California

On another note, I've been working on my personal project A Photographer's Journey. In its most simplest explanation, it is me photographing me while photographing (not a typo). That description is perhaps too simple, but it's a good way to explain the general idea. Instead of sharing the project straight to this Blog, I've been sharing it through Flickr. If you haven't been following this project, click here to begin.

Photographer June Van Cleef

About 15 years ago I first learned photography under the tutelage of June Van Cleef. At the time I was as clueless about photography as one could be. But June was patient, positive and honest with me. She taught me a lot, some of which I was too dumb to understand until years later.

June Van Cleef is well known in some photography circles. She has two published books and is regularly featured in art exhibits across Texas (and sometimes elsewhere).

The two books are both worth the cost--both are on my bookshelf at home. The Way Home - Photographs From The Heart of Texas can be found here. The Texas Outback - Ranching On The Last Frontier can be found here. The Texas Outback is the better of the two if you are only going to buy one.

Grand Fire Near Frazier Park, California ... Or, How I Made The News

The Grand Fire has been burning near Frazier Park, California since about noon yesterday. From the neighborhood that I live in one can get a great view of the smoke, across on the other side of the well-known and historic Tejon Ranch. Tehachapi News, the local affiliate of the Bakersfield Californian, asked for photographs of the fire captured from the Tehachapi area. I don't usually give away images, but in this case I thought it would be appropriate.

Front Page of the Tehachapi News Website

This morning I woke up to find one of my photographs right on the home page of the Tehachapi News website. That's pretty cool. I'm not sure if it will end up in the print edition.

There are two images of mine in the news article. Check it out here!

Horse Photographs

Sometimes I notice a theme when I go through the images that I've created. My daughter loves horses. It is not a big interest of mine, but she is really excited about them. Perhaps that is why I've photographed them as much as I have.

These are some of my favorite horse photographs that I've created over the last couple of years. A bunch of different cameras were used, it doesn't really matter which ones. Vision is what matters, and not equipment. They are in no particular order.

Horse At Fence - Onyx, California

Horse Speak - Onyx, California

Horsepower - Tehachapi, California

Horse Eye Reflection - Corona, California

Two Night Horses - Tehachapi, California
A miniature scene.

Four Horses - Tehachapi, California
Another miniature scene.

Horse Power - Tehachapi, California

Horsing Around - Bakersfield, California

Clydesdale - Anaheim, California

Horse Eye And Hair - Bakersfield, California

White Horse, Dark Horse - Tehachapi, California

Sad Horse - Onyx, California

Country Horse - Onyx, California

Running Horse - Onyx, California

Three Horses - Onyx, California

Lonely Horse - Onyx, California

Horse Eye And Bridle - Kernville, California

Photographer Chase Jarvis' Dream Shoot For Samsung

I saw this today and just had to share. Renown photographer Chase Jarvis was commissioned by Samsung to photograph his dream. And he did!

Chase Jarvis by Chase Jarvis

Go over to his blog, he explains how he made his dream into an image. It is definitely worth your time!

Two things struck me about this. First, photographic vision is the absolute most important thing in photography. If you don't have vision, you won't create great images. Second, my own personal project, A Photographer's Journey, has a lot of room for growth, and sometimes it takes an image like the one above to give me a metaphoric kick in the pants.

Me Two - Stallion Springs, California

The only thing any photographer (myself included) is limited by is imagination. If one can dream it, one can literally create a photograph of it, no matter how crazy the dream. The only one stopping you is you. The only one stopping me is me. I need to remove my self-imposed barriers. 

Cell Phone Pictures

It's been a while since I've posted cell phone photographs. I try to have a camera with me whenever I'm out-and-about, so there hasn't been a "need" for a cell phone camera. Over the last eight months, the majority of my cell phone images have been snapshots.

I did, however, find myself without any camera except for my cell phone, and in front of a scene that I wanted to capture. No problem! The cell phone camera is a perfectly capable photographic tool. Even my 15-month-old "free" cell phone is perfectly fine for this.

Desert Mine - Mojave, California

The above image was captured and post-processed using my cell phone. Within two minutes of capturing this photograph I had it uploaded to Facebook. If I wanted to make a print, this image would be fine as an 8"x10" (with the sides cropped) or 8"x12" (with the top and/or bottom cropped).

Equipment isn't important. Photographic vision is.