The Gear Trap | Virginia Hines | Street Photography Magazine

One of my photography friends has a house full of photo gear. Every time a buzzy new camera, lens, or gadget comes out, he has to have it. The only problem is, he’ll play with it a bit, then get distracted by the next flashy new toy. He never takes the time to get to know his fancy device, nor make the most of whatever features caused it to seem, momentarily, like a must-have. As often as not, when it’s time to take a photo, he defaults to shooting with his phone: “It’s so easy!” While his impressive collection of hardware gathers dust, his photo skills don’t progress much. The pictures he makes today resemble those from years ago, and still don’t receive the accolades he seeks. This persuades him that he simply must get a new camera, a good one this time! And so the cycle repeats.

My friend–let’s call him Dieter–is what I think of as a photo victim. He has fallen into the “gear trap” so often that it’s starting to acquire an almost reassuring familiarity. While he seemingly can’t control the trajectory of his photo journey, he’s fully in charge of his credit cards and acts accordingly. It’s easy to chuckle at Dieter, but let’s have some compassion, too. We’ve all strayed into a gear trap from time to time, as suggested by the robust supply of used photo gear on offer. Corporate marketing geniuses do their best to unsettle our confidence, then persuade us that their product will solve everything. And there’s good old-fashioned envy, which scientists say is the most common human trait. We see another photographer win a prestigious prize and talk about how she couldn’t have done it without Camera X. It’s less effort to buy our own Camera X and hope some mojo rubs off, than to spend 10,000 hours mastering photography’s essentials.

My photo background was analog. When I decided to try digital photography I started with a full-frame camera from a popular consumer brand. After using it a few months I made this photo in Bombay Beach, California – my first digital photo that I rather liked. I still think of this picture as the beginning of my digital photography journey.

The world conspires to persuade people with a sincere passion for photography that they’re just one or two purchases away from greatness. If only it were so easy! To be sure, we who aspire for our pictures to resonate with a wider audience will experience doubts and rejection along the way, making us vulnerable to flattery and seemingly simple answers. When I bump into Dieter, he’s usually very excited to show off his latest purchase. While his photos rarely change, his bank balance certainly does; often as not, I end up buying our coffee. So it’s not hard to fall into the gear trap–but how to get out, or better yet, avoid it in the first place? The answer is easier said than done, and also essential to growing as a photographer: put yourself in the driver’s seat of your photo evolution.

Several months after buying a serious digital camera, I stumbled upon an exciting subject: “indy” wrestling in small-town America, the bottom rung of the professional wrestling ladder. I excitedly shot some matches, but soon found that the camera’s choices weren’t well aligned with how I wanted the photos to turn out, and it was cumbersome to wrest control from software designed to minimize the photographer’s decisions. I liked some of the pictures, such as this one, but lost others because autofocus chose the wrong focal point.

Here, for example, the camera focused on the audience rather than the wrestler. The experience with this project motivated me to seek out new gear: the most manual digital camera I could find.

Fundamentally, the gear trap is sprung when you gaze too long into the hall of mirrors of other people’s stories. Write your own story, and start at the beginning. The first chapter shouldn’t be a spread in National Geographic or a front-page shot for the New York Times. Transform insecurity into a determination to build skills; repurpose envy into a signpost for your own ambition. Reflect on why you’re so passionate about photography and how you see it fitting into your future, alongside your other passions and responsibilities. And remember, it’s a journey. You can really only plot a path to the next milestone. Once you achieve it, then decide where to go next.

My search led to Leica digital rangefinders. I invested in a body and 50mm and 28mm lenses. The workflow was very different from both my automated digital camera and the large format and SLR film cameras I used in the past. It took almost a year to transition to carrying only the Leica. This photo of three generations at a Juneteenth parade in San Francisco was my first Leica picture chosen for an exhibition, at a local gallery.

It’s a photography truism that the photographer makes the picture, not the gear. Legendary Japanese street photographer Daido Moriyama comes to mind: his preferred cameras are old digital point-and-shoots that Dieter would turn his nose up at. The opposite of state-of-the-art, these cameras were introduced years ago and have small sensors, slow lenses, and poor low-light performance. But those features don’t matter to Moriyama, whose gritty black-and-white street style is well suited to a look that photo snobs disdain. Millions of those mass-market cameras were produced. Almost none of the photographers who bought the others created photos that approach Moriyama’s: it’s the photographer who makes the picture.

Like many digital camera users, I was converting color images to black and white, but found it challenging to produce converted photos that approached film’s tonality. Once again I was motivated to go shopping, for a monochrome digital Leica. That meant I could carry both a monochrome and a color camera, and be intentional about which was used for specific shots. For me, more intentionality meant better pictures. The first body of work I created exclusively in monochrome was a project on Alcatraz.

Shooting the Alcatraz project I also discovered an affinity for the imprecision of old lenses. Trading clinically perfect rendering for a softer, more subjective feel introduced depth and emotion that purely descriptive photos lacked. When I started the project my kit included an old lens and a modern one with a vintage optical design; over time, I liked the results well enough to buy two more. This picture of the Alcatraz morgue is an example.

The gear we shoot with is vitally important, but ideally, choices emerge organically as each of us progresses along our individual trajectories. My journey is one example. When I first came to digital photography after a background shooting on film, I gravitated to full-frame mirrorless gear from one of the famous Japanese marques. The compact size, big sensor, and promise that the camera was so smart that all I’d need to do was creatively frame the shot were alluring. I used that camera awhile and made a number of pictures I liked, although the plethora of buttons and menus were a bit distracting for someone with analog roots.

After finishing the Alcatraz project I continued to favor vintage-design lenses for monochrome images, especially when I wanted to introduce a “then or now” ambiguity to the picture, as in this photo from a black-powder shooting competition. Intentional gear choices have been foundational to my evolution as a photographer.

Then one day I stumbled on an exciting project: “indy” wrestling, the minor league of professional wrestling, where matches are hosted in makeshift arenas in American small towns. I had a chance to shoot some of these bouts and couldn’t wait to take a look at the results. When I did, there were many disappointments. Too often, the “smart” camera guessed wrong about which of the many objects in the frame was the intended subject. I ended up with far too many pictures where the ring’s vibrating ropes or random people who stepped into the frame were tack sharp, while the most interesting part of the image was badly out of focus. Some photos did turn out as I’d imagined, but the frequency of oh-so-close failures was frustrating. I was dejected but determined to avoid this issue in the future by taking full control of my picture-making, no longer delegating critical decisions to the programmers who wrote the camera’s software. This led to Leica rangefinders, the most manual digital shooting experience I could find. It took awhile to acclimate to seeing and shooting with a rangefinder, but once I did, I never looked back. This camera gave me my voice as a photographer. Your journey is your own, but the important thing is, this big shift in philosophy, which included buying new gear, was driven by photographic evolution, not the alluring words of marketing sirens. I observed a shortcoming in my original camera and sought out a better approach.

For now, my kit has stabilized around monochrome and color Leica M10 cameras and a set of prime lenses that work with either body. When Leica released an upgrade with more bells and whistles a few years back, I wasn’t tempted into the gear trap: at least for the moment, I have what I need to create the photos I want to make. With it, I made the top picture in this article from a village wedding in India last year, which was selected as a Leica Master Shot. Plus, with a finite set of equipment, I have become experienced enough with my gear to try some experiments, for example, this low-light, slow-shutter monochrome photo of police in Shanghai.

Sometimes I use vintage-design lenses with a color camera when I want the picture to go beyond describing a scene and convey more of what it felt like to be there, in that moment. This photo is from San Francisco’s Lunar New Year parade.

A few years later, my trajectory drove another round of shopping. During Covid I began making pictures on nearby Alcatraz, the notorious former prison, now a national park. At first I didn’t have a project in mind; I just wanted to beat cabin fever. With my monochrome camera and a couple of lenses I fired away, shooting anything that was even slightly eye-catching. One of the lenses happened to be from the 1960s, and when I got home and checked the results, those images had something special. Shooting in black and white with the slight indistinctness of a vintage lens captured something essential about Alcatraz that evoked how it might have felt to be on the bleak island decades ago. By contrast, the clinical perfection of modern glass seemed almost anachronistic and lacked the emotional dimension of the other shots. Based on that observation, I went back and kept shooting with the old lens. Eventually I was motivated to buy vintage versions in a couple of other focal lengths, and a project was born with a very specific look and feel – my unique take on this infamous place.

For more documentary shots, I opt for a modern lens that’s sharp with good contrast and the latest coatings. These drag queens are in one of San Francisco’s No Kings protests.

I still buy gear from time to time, but aim to base purchases on my evolving photographic needs rather than marketing chatter. Most recently, after making a series of portraits of artists and locals during a residency in Italy last year, I’ve acquired a bit of studio lighting equipment in order to practice this very specialized photographic niche.

These are my stories – you are writing your own. A set of well-crafted pictures that reflect your evolution as a photographer makes for a better story than a laundry list of buzzy gear that mostly sits on the shelf. Own your photo journey and consider the gear trap next time you get the itch to go shopping. If you’re less reactive to the constant chatter and more attuned to following your inner voice, your pictures will show the difference.