You Have Too Many Cameras, Let's Fix That

I’ve got two pieces for you today. First, you’ve probably got way too many cameras, and I’d like to make you feel bad about that. Kidding, kidding. But I would like to talk about how we can and why we should narrow down the cameras we use.

Second is: this past week I got an idea and I want to run it by you. It involves Tolkien and the sea.

You Have Too Many Cameras

Last episode, I told you all about my hike into Bullet Canyon, weighed down by not enough water and a few too many cameras. While the water issue was a lesson well-learned, the camera situation was not.

On that hike, I brought along five different cameras. This was less than half of the cameras I brought along for the trip. I left seven or eight in the car.

My photography from this time was pretty hit or miss. I was still working with 35mm cameras, and was still dabbling in toy cameras. I had just gotten my Mamiya RB67 and had no idea how to really use it. I wasn’t exactly a novice, I had been shooting for years by that point. But I was unfocused, shooting an ever-changing variety of cameras. I was experimenting.

Historically, in the film era, most photographers had one camera. Some of the more wealthy ones had a few, but still, most focused upon a single camera. It wasn’t uncommon to settle on a specific emulsion and developer, as well.

They bought new cameras, of course, but often sold or gave away their old ones. Photographers were interested in the photos first, the cameras second.

With the plethora of used cameras ever since digital took over, the photograph has often taken a back seat to the camera. Or rather, the cameras. The many, many cameras.

There were camera and lens collectors back then, but they were pretty rare. Today, they’re almost the norm. It’s a safe bet that the majority of you listening to this have a half dozen or more cameras. I myself have several dozen. It’s honestly a bit ridiculous.

I have five Argus C3s (aka The Brick). Why? I’ve got four or five Exaktas, a couple of Pentax, various 620 cameras, a few old box cameras, two RB67s, some random 4x5s, and my god, I really hate talking about gear.

My point is that we have a lot of cameras and for the collectors, that’s a good thing. That’s the point of collecting. But for the photographer, I think it’s a bad idea.

I’m not saying it’s a bad idea to own however many cameras you can stomach owning. Collect all the cameras you want. What I’m saying is that I think if we’re going to get serious about photography, we need to focus on a single camera.

Why Just One?

“Let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand,” wrote Henry David Thoreau in Walden, “instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail... Simplify, simplify.” Of course, he wrote Walden while living rent free on Ralph Waldo Emerson’s land, with Emerson’s wife cooking his meals, and his own mom doing his laundry. But still, it’s not bad advice.

Simplifying our lives seems daunting. There’s no simple way to do it, which is somewhat ironic. So why not start with photography? Simplify, simplify by weeding out the cameras we no longer use, no longer like, no longer want. Simply further by selecting the one camera that motivates us, inspires us to create.

If you’re going on a trip or a hike, take a single damn camera. Stop taking six or ten or however many cameras with you. Absolutely nobody is impressed and it’s just confusing.

Picking just one camera allows us to become experts with that camera. I don’t mean just your make and model, I mean the specific camera you hold in your hand. These cameras aren’t new. Each has their own unique tricks and quirks. Maybe the shutter is a bit slow or the film advances oddly. Maybe the focus is a bit off or there's just something weird about it. The film counter on my Mamiya 645 doesn’t flip back to zero when I’m done with a roll. I have to manually turn the gear inside the film compartment backwards each time. Whatever it is, the more you use it, the more you will become an expert at using your camera.

On the practical side, using just one camera saves us money. Granted, it’s money we’ll just end up spending on film and developing, but still. We’ll no longer feel the need to browse Ebay for our next camera. We’ll not bother with antique stores or swap meets. Yard sales will have even less appeal to us.

More than anything, however, I’ve found that settling upon a single camera also eliminates that weird drive for more gear - what some folks call GAS, gear acquisition syndrome. Eventually, that drive to get another lens, another body, and yet another lens will just go away. That urge to spend your money on some random camera will be replaced with the urge to photograph, to actually use the camera you already have.

I recently wrote about the various bad advice we photographers are given when we’re looking for inspiration. My least favorite of all was the idea that buying a new piece of gear will inspire you. It’s b******t. First, that’s not inspiration. Second, we need to learn how to find that inspiration within ourselves, with our own cameras. This is why picking the right camera for you is so important.

Picking Favorites

I have a horrible time at picking a favorite anything. If someone asks me what my favorite movie is, I don’t even know how to begin the selection process. A favorite song? Do you mean now? Yesterday? Last year? I can’t wrap my head around how people even have such a thing as a favorite.

So picking a favorite camera should be just as daunting. Except that’s not really the same thing, is it? You had nothing to do with your favorite movie or favorite song. You weren’t involved in the creation of either. They came to you, perfectly formed and in their final product. In fact, they are products and you are the consumer.

It’s not quite the same as having a favorite camera. With a camera, you are not the consumer (at least, not after you bought it). You are the producer, the artist, the creator. The relationship we have with the instruments used to create our work is a different relationship than we have towards almost anything else.

But we do still have to pick a favorite, and even with cameras, I’m really bad at it. Narrowing down our collections is not an easy thing to do. Simplifying isn’t necessarily simple. But I do have a few tips.

First, take a look at your work, especially the pieces that you’re especially proud of. Don’t look up or try to remember which camera and lens you used to take the photos. Just go by instinct and select a few dozen that really move you. With them all together there staring you in the face, sort them by camera. Which one allowed you to take your favorite photos?

Of course, it’s probably not going to be that simple. So maybe start with remembering how each camera made you feel. Which was the most fun to use? Which brought you the most happiness? Which camera, when you see it, makes you smile?

And then there’s the practical reasons to keep a camera. Maybe if you really like hiking, a 35mm is a good choice. What is the best camera to use for the work you normally produce?

In the end, there’s no formula for this, and you might make the wrong decision. In one way, the gear we have doesn’t matter. We tell ourselves that “any camera is able to take a wonderful photo in the right hands.” And this isn’t necessarily untrue, but we’re looking for the perfect camera for us. The one that makes you feel like a damn photographer.

Obviously There Are Exceptions

Here’s where I break in and tell you that I do not shoot with a single camera. I have a good excuse for this, too, though it’s more of a justification than anything. I shoot two formats: large and medium, 4x5 and 120. I have one daily driver (so to speak) for each of the formats.

I actually suggest this. If you shoot 35mm and 120, then I don’t see any reason to force yourself into picking a single format. I want us to simply, not go crazy. Each format offers things that other formats can’t. Whether it’s the portability of 35 or the scope of 4x5 or 8x10, each format allows us to photograph the same subject in wildly different ways.

That said, try not to use that as a justification to just collect more cameras. Remember, we are simplifying, not collecting.

What About Lenses?

One of my least favorite things to talk about (or to listen to others talk about) is lenses. I realize and understand that they’re all not the same, and that each lens has a variety of different and important attributes. But all talk about lenses is the same, and it’s all unfathomably boring. Especially when compared to actually using a lens.

So here is my very short spiel about lenses: pick a few you like and get rid of the rest. You don’t have to explain why you like them (and it’s better for everyone if you don’t). And you don’t even have to understand why you made the selections you did. Just do it and get on with your life.

We have now reached the end of my lens talk.

What Do I Do With All These Cameras?

But what do we do with all our cameras; with the dozens we’ve collected over the years? Hell, some we’ve probably never even shot. To put it plainly, I don’t know. I don’t have an answer for this. I still own dozens and dozens of cameras. I haven’t shot 35mm in years, yet I’ve got more of those than anything else. Why? I don’t know. I have no answers here.

My point isn’t to get rid of the cameras you have (though we probably should). It’s not about owning stuff or not owning stuff. It’s about creating our work, improving our skills and our desires to produce. I feel it’s easier to do that with a single camera.

And I know that doesn’t answer the question. In my case, who the hell would want some Exaktas that basically work? What about my weird ass box cameras? And that Mamiya 645 with the broken counter; I couldn’t force that upon someone, it’s a ridiculous thing to deal with.

But then, every camera has its quirks. Maybe it would click with someone. So if you feel weird about selling off most of your collection, why not share it? Loan them out! Give them away if you like. There are literally no rules here.

Like I said, you don’t need to get rid of a single camera. You can keep your entire collection. But try to settle on one camera to use regularly.

I’ll Shut Up Now

And that’s my plea. Why do I care? I guess I really don’t. Do what you want, it’s your photographic experience. But if you’re looking to take a different approach to your photography, if you’ve decided to get serious about your work, maybe consider narrowing it down. You only need one camera to be a photographer.

Of Tolkien, Sea-Longing, and a New Photography Project

I have a friend, and we’ve known each other for something like 25 years now. I worked in a bookstore on the east coast and he was one of my customers. In fact, the first thing he ever said to me was: “Who’s the a*****e on the Segway?” as some a*****e on a Segway scooter rode past the door. It was love at first sight, really.

We bonded over a shared love of Star Wars. He introduced me to some amazing music like XTC, and tried to get me interested in Tolkien, but I declined.

If you’re wondering whether someone has ever actually said, “You know, the Silmarillian is my favorite Tolkien book,” I promise you, it was Brad who said this. And I was like, “sorry buddy, no can do.”

He really wanted me to get into Tolkien though. So before the Return of the King premiered at midnight on December 17, 2003, he brought over the DVDs of Fellowship and Two Towers and we watched them back-to-back before heading to the theater. But I still wasn’t hooked. I mean, I liked the movies, but not enough to actually read the books.

We hung out almost every day for a couple of years, and then he moved away. We kept in touch as best we could, but it wasn’t the same. He moved to Wisconsin, and then to Canada. I moved to Seattle, after which, he moved to around Portland. Each year since then we spend Christmas together and I stop in at his place at the end of my month long photography trips.

In that time, I discovered Tolkien. I read the Hobbit, read Lord of the Rings, and then the Silmarillion. And then I took it too far. I delved into the History of Middle-Earth, a 12-volume series tracing the earliest writings all through to the very last thing Tolkien wrote. This was the various drafts of the Silmarillion and Lord of the Rings, plus a slew of many, many other things.

Brad was obviously thrilled. We had talked about getting together online to just chit chat, but that never really happened. Recently, with the news that he might move again, he asked if I wanted to read some Tolkien and then discuss it together. My answer was “Yes, I absolutely want to do this!”

After some back and forth, we settled on a book called The Fall of Gondolin. The book contains various versions of one of the stories from the Silmarillion. Real nerdy stuff, to be sure. I knew the basic idea of the story, but never actually studied it specifically. We assigned ourselves the first 60 pages and would meet up in a week to talk about it.

This was all happening in the last week or so, and I think it’s a good idea to tell you what I had on my plate, photographically speaking. And that was nothing. Nothing at all. I had no ideas, no projects, nothing new. I was still planning on doing some more cemetery photos, and was working on a hike or two, which would involve a camera, but nothing solid. I had no ideas at all.

And that bothered me. Especially since I had just written that piece on inspiration. I was fine with taking a break, like I said. But also, I wasn’t as fine with it as I wanted to be. I knew that I was supposed to believe that inspiration would just come and hit me at some point. But when? I said I wasn’t getting nervous about it, but also, I was. Well, not exactly nervous. I wasn’t afraid I’d never be inspired again. I think I just really wanted to feel that inspiration.

I’m not going to tell you the story about the Fall of Gondolin, but I do need to tell you a little bit about it.

It’s about a guy, a human, named Tuor. He left the company of other people and walked down a river until it finally reached something neither he, nor any man, had ever seen before: the sea.

“And here for awhile he wandered till he came to the black cliffs by the sea and saw the ocean and its waves for the first time, and at that hour the sun set beyond the rim of the Earth far out to sea, and he stood on the cliff-top with outspread arms, and his heart was filled with a longing very great indeed.”

I should tell you about my history with the ocean. When I was a kid, my parents would take us to various New Jersey beaches and Ocean City, Maryland. We called it “the shore,” and while I knew it was the ocean, I never really connected it to the sea, if that makes any sense. The Sea is wild. The shore is a boardwalk filled with seagulls trying to steal your fries. It smells of tar-soaked wood, sunscreen, and pizza (possibly the best combination of scents known to humankind).

It’s a place filled with tourists baking themselves like potatoes, various teenagers, and innumerable shops where you could buy Motley Crue t-shirts. It wasn’t a place to appreciate nature. There was an ocean, but there was not a sea.

Later in life, I made it to the Pacific Ocean, but that was just the Santa Monica Pier, which was like a shitty mirror image of what Californians thought Jersey beaches were like. Since then, I’ve visited some other West Coast beach towns and even some much more natural beaches. They’re nice, but apart from a quick “ohh, pretty!” I didn’t much care. I knew they were beautiful, but just didn’t get it.

So as I read about Tuor taking in the Sea for the first time, I was a little jealous. I recalled some of the high cliffs overlooking the ocean along Route 101 in Oregon. I remembered a quick trip to Northern California, too. I shrugged it off, and continued reading.

“There long he sojourned alone and roamed about the shore or fared over the rocks at the ebb, marveling at the pools and the great weeds, the dripping caverns and the strange sea-fowl that he saw and came to know; but the rise and fall of the water and the voice of the waves was ever to him the greatest wonder and ever did it seem a new and unimaginable thing.”

Why couldn’t I experience this? I thought as I read. In the deserts, I feel such a direct connection to the land. The prairie winds and waving grasses, in beauty much like the sea, call to me when I’m away. On my hikes and travels into the scablands, I find surreal solidarity with the sage brush and basalt columns. I hold a kinship with the coyotes and rattlesnakes, the magpies and ravens. But why has the sea never placed itself in my heart?

Tolkien writes that Tuor’s heart was “ever egging him with a strange longing” to venture out onto the sea. At times “it grew into a fierce desire.”

I have longed for places in a similar way, and have written quite a bit about that longing. It’s inexplicable, but some places just call to us. We either hear the call or we don’t. It is either calling or it’s not. And maybe there is nothing we can do about the call. But then, maybe there is.

An idea formed now, as I continued reading.

“There [by the sea] he passed a very great while until the loneliness of the empty sea got into his heart…”

Maybe there is nothing we can do about this calling. Maybe the sea calls to some and disregards the rest. Or maybe we can call out ourselves. Nature, perhaps, isn’t unmoved by our own cries.

As photographers, sometimes a project just comes into being after we photograph a variety of things. We find some thread within our work, and with a bit of culling and some imagination, we create a project from pictures already taken.

And sometimes we start with nothing, no photos, no specifics, no real locations, just some words. Some “strange longing” that might not even be in our hearts. Some “strange longing” that might not even be our own, at least not yet.

As photographers, as artists, we have felt that loneliness. It lives in our hearts and sometimes helps us create and sometimes halts all creation. While I have felt and lived the loneliness of the open road, the loneliness of small towns, of the prairie, of canyons, and stark deserts, I have yet to feel the loneliness of the empty sea. I have yet to feel it flowing into my heart, adding its own loneliness to my own.

But here, as I read, formed a new idea, a new project. The first ocean that came to my mind when reading these pages was that of southern Oregon. Far south of the often-over-photographed Canon Beach and the Wreck of the Peter Iredale. Far south of the Columbia and Portland.

And I could go when others wouldn’t – harsh autumn days, swept with rains and fog – long after what few tourists venture there have left.

The practical also came into focus. There were a few campgrounds, which would cut expenses, making the whole thing more feasible, more likely. They would also place me closer to where I could photograph.

I looked at maps and marked dozens of rocky beaches, hidden coves, and trails to jagged overlooks. I counted and lost count, and realized this might not take a trip or two. This might take years.

And what if I couldn’t feel that “strange longing”? What if the sea never called to me? Could I still photograph it? Would that even be honest? Would it be true?

But that is always the case with projects like this. They form themselves as some complete entity in your mind, when in reality they exist not at all. We have to bring them into being. We, as artists, as photographers, have to create these projects or fail trying. There are no guarantees of anything. With our creativity, we are not promised a single photograph. Whatever may be success is not foretoken. This calling and “strange longing” is not assured. I might not know if the loneliness of the empty sea has gotten into my heart until after every photo has been taken.

But I will know nothing at all if I don’t make this attempt, if I don’t seek this out. The sea cannot call out until I am there before it. Nothing can be created until I am willing to create.

I told my friend Brad about this as we discussed Tuor’s journey to the sea. He was happy for me and supportive, even though I must have sounded crazy. We talked of how I would accomplish this and it seemed almost silly, as any creative idea spoken out loud must. Saying the words “I want to photograph the ocean because I want to feel this sea-longing” is, by any standard, a ridiculous statement.

But here is my project. It’s now as formed as it can be prior to any work being done, before any actual creation. I didn’t want this or ask for this. I had no plans whatsoever to even visit the ocean. And yet, there’s obviously some calling and I have little choice but to answer. There is some “strange longing” and before too long we’ll see what kind of loneliness gets into my heart.