I am a photographer without all the latest and greatest gadgets

[Roger Hicks]

Well Roger I've been a professional student for 90% of my life and I studied mainly quantitative fields so the pen has been an integral part of my life.

If you're going to write a lot, you need a good enough pen. From my personal experience, a ball point pen will never reach that quality threshold you talk about.

And I'm not one for settling. I strive to make myself better at all times and I feel like as long as I don't lose sight of improving my own technique there is no reason to not also improve my tools.

Roger I agree with you the vast majority of the time and you've given me good advice but I think if you went and got one of those nice Watermen 52s they have over there and wrote with it for a few weeks you would see your handwriting improve and certainly your hands would feel better.

I have learned to be as nice to my hands as I can be. I will never play starcraft again, I dont play the guitar like Im trying to kill it anymore, I don't use crappy keyboards, I always wear gloves when working with them outside, and I use a good pen. I want them to last as long as I do.

The older I get, the more I fall back on individual variation: what works for one person is not always ideal for another. The important thing, as you imply, is to think about whatever you do. After that, we all make our own compromises..

For me, my old Parker is 'good enough', because most of the time, I'm either making notes (pencil) or writing for money (keyboard). No, my handwriting wouldn't improve (I have the glass dip-pen for calligraphy, and in any case, my writing style varies enormously according to what I'm writing, how I'm feeling, etc.). I've never got on with Watermans or Mont Blancs: the Parker has a nice balance, but as I say, I just don't write enough longhand for it to matter, and when I do, I'm at least as happy with my (believe it or not, Leica-engraved) German-made Troika 'safety ceramic roller' as with any fountain pen I've used.

Your idea of looking after your hands in an excellent one, but again, a lot depends on what you do and how you do it. Given that I do a lot of the work on my Land Rover myself (up to and including changing gearboxes and radiators) I prefer to work carefully rather than 'babying' them.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Neare]

@rediburning

Hey dude, thanks for being honest. What I wrote was trying to niggle at people but don't think I'm trying to make fun of you or tear you down. I was honestly interested in why people, photographers in particular, own these sorts of items. I still attend university, in say the social sciences department all students young and old are using ball points. But go over to the art and design faculty, and everyone has these accessories. I have no problem in them owning these items, but my question is why they have them. You mentioned a practical need and there may be which is fine, but honestly I believe there is an aspect there that goes beyond that. More so a personal statement about ones self and I just can't help but notice its ties to photography.