value

If you bought the same guitar as Eric Clapton, would you play music just like him? If you owned the same golf clubs as Tiger Woods, would you play golf just like him? If you used the same pen as J.K. Rowling, would your books be just as successful?

The answer to all of the above is, of course, a resounding “no”, (despite what the product manufacturers might say).

But yet, many people think that if they buy the same camera as a professional photographer, they will shoot the same pictures. Why?

From Margaret Atwood’s 2002 book Negotiating with the Dead :

To be an opera singer you not only have to have a voice, you have to train for years; to be a composer you have to have an ear, to be a dancer you have to have a fit body, to act on the stage you have to be able to remember your lines, and so on.

Being a visual artist now approaches writing, as regards its apparent easiness – when you hear remarks like “My four-year-old could do better,” you know that envy and contempt are setting in, of the kind that stem from the belief that the artist in question is not really talented, only lucky or a slick operator, and probably a fraud as well. This is likely to happen when people can no longer see what gift or unusual ability sets an artist apart.

The amazing technology built into digital cameras has created an under-appreciation and a devaluation of photography. Many forget that a camera is just a tool, like a guitar, a golf club or a pen. An experienced photographer is not someone who knows how to push a button. But rather, they know when to push that button. A professional photograph gets its value from what it shows and from what it doesn’t.