I’ll sometimes browse the used lens ads in websites of the major camera stores or on Craigslist, and it’s become increasingly clear to me that I don’t have the same perspective on finding better gear that I once did.
Today, for example, I saw a very expensive used Canon 11-24mm lens on Craiglist for $2100, and I felt no twinge of desire to have that model of lens for myself.
I now feel the same even with the less exotic Canon lenses, for example, all the varieties of the popular 24-70mm F/2.8 series. While I recognize that those lenses are wonderfully useful – I owned a Nikon 24-70/2.8 in the 1990s – I feel no hint of a desire to save up and buy one.
I think partly it’s because I’m realizing how very much I can get out of my relatively humble gear, all of which is very, very good, but not terribly expensive: a 24-105 F/4 L IS USM, a 135mm F/2.0, and a couple of 50s – the compact macro 50mm F/2.5 and the 50mm F/1.8 II.
But I also know for sure that it’s because I’ve seen what happens when I tap into a deep source of inspiration when I’m taking pictures, regardless of the lenses I own. Namely, given sufficient lens quality, the lens itself doesn’t matter, and not even a $7,000 lens will make a difference.
I know this for a fact. I’ve taken blah photos with the same lenses with which I’ve taken photos that soar. The difference is that the good pictures were made without exception when I was able to offer the core of my heart in total sincerity to be an instrument for the Divine to show the wonders of its presence in the natural world.
I don’t take artsy photos – I’m just a workaday utility photographer. Therefore “good” needs its own definition in the context of the work I do. And maybe I’m unable to take photos that are as deep and pungent with God as a more elevated full-time photographer-devotee could. But I know that my photos are more eye-sweet when I’ve offered myself to God, at my own workaday level.