Secondly, the randomization is a way to prove to myself that it's not the gear, it's the photographer. So if I just perused a magazine with great b/w film images, I won't be tempted to go load the film body with Tri-X but will use what the randomizer(tm) selects and go away focusing on photographing, not gear.
Well but it's also the photographer who makes choices. If I read an book with great b/w wideangle portraits that inspires me I want to try out wideangle portraits, not be forced to take colour images and a tele lens just because I'm outsourcing my photographic decisions to some stupid Excel sheet.
I find a conscious approach to photography better. You should try to find out what you want and what you are comfortable with. Here is a little personal story. For example, I notice that over the last year or so I've gotten a lot better with wideangles:
21mm on the M5. Not the best picture of the year but I scanned it just now and had it lying around.
This is because I felt like running around with a wideangle a lot. It just felt comfortable, so I did it. In particular, I thought that a rangefinder was the perfect thing for photography in general and wideangles in particular. So I took a lot of pictures with the Leica and began to identify the Leica with good pictures in general and wideangle shots in particular.
Then at some point it happened that I was sitting in the kitchen chatting with a photographer friend and his wife, and he gave me his Nikon F2 and a 24 to play around with. As we chatted, at some point he asked whether I'd like a roll of film, so I shot a roll in his kitchen as we were talking. Here's one shot off that roll:
At that point I understood three things. The first is that this was a camera with amazing ergonomics - if it allows me to feel comfortable with it when drunk even though I'm completely unfamiliar with it, it can't be bad. (Note that the vodka bottle on the left was our second and this is the beginning of the roll.) The second thing was that with the Leica the picture would have been worse and that consequently I should think about using SLRs more often. And the third thing was that all things considered, it still was not the camera, but me, who had taken the picture, and that I had really got better with wideangles by running around a lot of time with something I felt comfortable with.
In that sense reading too much RFF has been bad, for example. I even began to feel locked into this rangefinder thing. I took portraits with 85mm lenses. The portraits were extremely bad, so I found out the hard way that as far as I'm concerned, rangefinders suck already for short telephotos. Eventually I went back to taking an SLR for everything over 50 just because it was so bad. And all the time I had a nagging feeling that I was using my gear that I had bought partly out of GAS because I felt like I
should be using it. Then I found out by chance that I can work a medium to strong wideangle on an SLR as well. Now as I begin to think about it more consciously, the main context where I am sure that I feel comfortable with the Leica is the real ultrawideangles with an external viewfinder. Apart from that niche, everything considered, rangefinders were just a fad. And as far as the Leica is concerned, given that on the other hand, I can have more or less the same comfort and mode of operation with a FED-2 with less risk of breakage, maybe at some point the Leica will find its way into the classifieds here. It's a great camera and it has enormously brought me forward in any ways, but if I eventually find out that it doesn't bring me forward and isn't utilised, or that I only keep it because it's a Leica and I hang around on a forum with lots of Leicas, I won't be too attached to it.
Just don't feel hesitant to run around and form an opinion by yourself. Don't tell yourself what you
should do, instead try to find out what you actually
want to do. Forming a consistent opinion about that is surprisingly difficult, but it's worth it. An Excel sheet, however, is not the way.
