Craft vs. Collection

[hms624]

Just out of curiosity, if you all were to define yourselves, how many take pictures for the excuse to collect cameras, and how many collect cameras because of a love of taking pictures? Be honest.

 

[KoNickon]

I love taking pictures, and I love the idea of taking pictures with older equipment as well. Sometimes the older equipment simplifies things (fewer features) and that frees me up to not worry about the details; sometimes it's a real inconvenience to use the older gear. (No meter; bottom loading; zone focusing; etc.) But it's a real kick to get great results from stuff that's older than I am. It's more than a matter of just getting the picture; it's the fun of using the equipment too.

 

[f/stopblues]

I think the great majority at least started into cameras because of a healthy love of the act of picture-taking. So far each camera I have was bought for a specific purpose in taking photos.. none are just for collecting. Although, my "collection" has grown sigificantly in the last six months or so. I *needed* all of them though! I can appreciate how some people would love to have some vintage cameras just for show though.

 

[Pherdinand]

It was the second one, certainly, but slowly the 'collecting' got important too, especially in case of cameras that needed some work on them, and now these two are splitted, almost equally important for me. I still use all my cameras, but not regularly.

 

[kzim56]

I struggle with this sometimes. I insist that I'm not a camera collector. I want to become a better photographer. But old cameras and gear keep showing up at my door. I started shooting film again with a bit of nostalgia. My late older brother was a professional and taught me photography back in the late '60's and early '70's. I was drawn back to the equipment of that time. I can afford some of the photo equipment I longed for as a teen. It still works great and with a little skill outperforms more modern stuff. Anyway, I love to collect cameras. I love to take photographs.

Karl

 

[Socke]

I think I turned collector around spring last year when I got my first FSU rangefinder.

I haven't used my Contax SLRs for nearly a year now but my Gs are ready to go and I promised the Zorki an outing this week.

 

[ChrisN]

I'm not going to lose sleep over this one - I enjoy it all, and to me it's all a part of photography. That's enough for me. 🙂

 

[hms624]

I think that there definitely are places in photography for both types. For example, Ansel Adams had a love for the craft of photography, but had a healthy obsession with equipment and technique. His books demonstrate how deep his understandings were of every intricacy of photographic craft and equipment. He owned all types of cameras for all types of uses--although much of his serious work was taken with large-format view cameras. On the other hand, Henri Cartier-Bresson despised excess craft and equipment. He strongly believed in knowing just enough so that the camera became second-nature. Superfluous equipment that stems out of a love for photography was pointless to him. He did not even make his own prints. This is the reason his work is taken almost entirely on an M3 with a 50mm lens. He loved picture taking, but did not care for equipment. I am just wondering which side everyone here favors more. Although the love of equipment and photography may balance out in your lives, I am sure that if pressed to make a choice, everyone could.

 

[Byuphoto]

Snce there has been a change, in RFF. to more about the equipment than the photos. I am curious as to how many actually take photos

 

[djon]

I don't understand Byup's comment about changes (language barrier?).

I suggest that we click Gallery and other links that people offer (eg in this very thread) to see their individual approaches to making photographs.

Seems like half of us do post photos here, but I don't know if snaps of cats and babies count as interest in making photos (yikes! did I really say that?).

The people who DON'T post may be too busy making photos to bother, or maybe they don't have scanners or may not use labs that do affordable scans adequately, or maybe they just don't like digital weirdness.

Half of my own Gallery was badly scanned by Fuji equipment. I scanned most of the rest on good equipment, but I didn't do a great job of it.

I don't see any reason to divide us up (despite my baby/cat comment above): Sometimes it's HARD to get off our duffs and go outside and actually open our eyes.

I sympathize. I tried mightily last weekend and don't have much to show for it. No cats, no babies, but I'll be doing a baby portrait this Thursday. Slippery slope. How the mighty have fallen! 😀

 

[back alley]

i know that this site leads one, quite easily, to buying more gear.
but i would guess most of us started out with a genuine curiosity about photos and how to make/take them.

when i came over to rff, i had 2 mamiya 6's and 2 lenses, one for each body.
i had grown tired and stale and shooting was not the fun it had once been for me.
i needed a change and decided to return to my roots, rf 35mm cameras.
i bought a bessa r with 35/75 lenses and i was hooked all over again.

i have since sold the cv gear and stepped backwards into the 50/60's with all metal, no meter gear. a much more simple approach.
i like having different lenses for the different 'looks' they offer.
as a kid i had no idea about 'looks' i was interested in lens test sharpness and the newest built in metering systems.

i have grown in my appreciation for gear and also my appreciation for the photos i can take with that gear.

i sense a certain self rightiousness emanating from those who see themselves as users and not collectors.
this site has room for both. it also has room for older, less expensive gear and for the latest most pricey kit.
and most especially it has room for all of us that play with this stuff.

chris has the right idea, don't lose any sleep over it, enjoy what you enjoy!!

joe

 

[hms624]

I am not saying that one option is superior to another. In fact, looking back, it would be more appropriate to list three categories: the photographer that wants to streamline his or her process (i.e. Cartier-Bresson,) the photographer that is interested in acquiring as much equipment as possible to further the craft (i.e. Adams,) and the collector. One is not better than the other. It is not harmful to classify oneself as leaning toward one particular group. In fact, for one were to claim that people who were more interested in photography than collecting felt superior, they would first have to admit that collecting is somehow inferior. I don't believe that this is true. It is perfectly legitimate to collect for the sake of collecting--the collection need not serve a practical purpose. For example, people collect mechanical watches and fountain pens. This does not mean that they feel as if they need to justify their collections by always checking the time or writing as much as possible. In fact, both writing and keeping the time can be accomplished much more easily and precisely by using a computer and a cheap quartz watch. I suppose this is the reason that so many people are confused by their GAS. It is in fact their hobby: not a negative side-effect as most believe.

 

[Flyfisher Tom]

I take photos because, regrettably, I don't have photographic memory.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Those are the only options?

 

[richard_l]

I love gear, but I don't collect it. 🙄

 

[unky tone]

My first photos were taken as a child with a crappy kodak instamatic in the 70's. Then I found my dad's voigtlander and took a few rolls. Then not much until one Christmas I got a part time job in a department store working in the tiny camera department. A colleague was studying photography and we became great friends.

http://www.claudioraschella.com/

One day I asked him what sort of camera he had and he brought it out of his bag.. Canon F1. I said "I think my dad has that camera at home - he bought it about 5 years ago in Hong Kong but doesn't use it." Claude was incredulous - get that thing out and take some photos! I was hooked. I use my cameras all the time, I don't really like autofocus but love autoexposure. I bought the hexar because I wanted to try Rangefinder style photography. The Yahsica was an 'intro' into the style, the canonet was a gift. I admire the old stuff but I don't collect it.

 

[remrf]

Although I have quite a few cameras I have never thought of myself as a collector. I worked as a pro in the late 60's and again in the mid 80's but both times for the most part I was using equiptment I did not own. First as a photographer with the 25th Infantry Div. in Viet Nam (69'-70'. I did some sporadic product photography in the 70's but in the mid 80's I went back to it full time first in portrait and wedding photgraphy and then with a local commercial photographer. I was working with very good large and medium format gear . Cameras that were well beyond my personal means at the time.

My "collection" pretty much duplicates the gear I worked with at that time. A good 4x5 view camera with good lenses (and 120 roll backs). A good medium format camera and lenses and a good 35mm slr system with assorted lenses. And enough strobe equiptment to do interiors or product work should the occasion arise.

I guess I "collected" the Leica IIIa because of a fondness for fine machines and a nostalgia for a similar Leica I owned in the 60's. I cannot think of an occasion on a professional shoot where that would be the camera I would take with me to do the work.

But it is the camera I will take with me on the off chance of something interesting happening during my day.

 

[Gordon Coale]

I take pictures for hire and for personal projects. I needed a kit that would do small, medium, and large format. I don't have much money so I ended up with old cameras. When I started buying these old cameras I figured I would be giving up something on performance. I've been more than pleasently surprised to discover that these cameras more than hold there own. And they offer a directness in operation lacking in modern equipment. A directness that I love. And I can tinker with them. Hanging out here I've also learned that the sharpest, newest lenses are not always the best. They are just different.

I can only afford to buy cameras that are I have a use for. Too bad. I wish I could afford to buy an M series Leica to go with my IIIc. And some Contaxes and Kievs. And those Canon LTMs! So beautiful. And an Iskra. And a ...

 

[dmr]

Those are the only options?

I wondered about this too. Since joining this forum, I've managed to acquire more cameras than I've ever had before in my life all added up. But I don't consider myself to be a collector by any means.

I regularly use every camera I have with the exception of the Yashica TLR, which I am planning on trying out soon.

Maybe I'm really semi-immune to GAS, but for some reason I don't feel a need to get more cameras.

However, that could change tomorrow. 🙂

 

[jlw]

I'm primarily a photographer who winds up with weird cameras and lenses because I hope they might give my pictures a certain "look" or make it easier to take kinds of pictures I want to take.

But there's some unacknowledged skew in this question:

-- People who primarily collect cameras no doubt feel that collecting doesn't NEED an excuse, and don't feel the need to rationalize it by taking pictures -- so neither vote option really applies to them. (And we as RF users should be appreciative of these people; they're a tremendous source of knowledge about older equipment.)

-- Yes, the forum is more about equipment than about photography. But after all, it IS a forum named after a certain kind of photography equipment. Although I'm as interested in the aesthetic and intellectual side of photography as anyone (maybe more than most people, since I used to be an art critic) this doesn't seem like the best place to discuss it, except in regard to its specific application to the types of photography best practiced with rangefinder cameras.

I'm not sure it even makes sense to delve too deeply into photo-aesthetics in an online forum, where reproduction can't be big or detailed enough to convey much subtlety. On the other hand, technical and equipment information is the type of thing that can be shared easily and productively, so there's a realistic tendency for the content to gravitate toward what best suits the medium of communication.