Dear all,
I wanted to share my thoughts openly and I try to share those as a process that happened.
I have visited Photokina again that large exhibition with all the big photo corporations being there. I love technology and as that Photokina is a nice place to see all the technology evolution going on. This year though I have felt different (perhaps I am growing up as well) and I wanted to share that other dimension. That dimension that is not discussed as much as perhaps we should.
As I was going through the exhibitions I could easily notice that now we have many more options. We have many more LED models as before, softboxes at different sizes and light modifiers. New systems to be attached on the flashguns (that deliver their "unique" promises) and millions of other accessories.
I found myself somehow lost in this sea of products and I have started thinking if we indeed need that many products. I have also found myself wondering if the "seller" was right, as he/she was insisting about the product. I found stands that were selling great softboxes that give soft light (where the softbox is not larger than your fist). Sometimes I found my self weak enough to go for a purchase, "Perhaps is something wrong with me. But these guys most probably know better than me". To keep the story short I did not buy anything this year apart of some magazines, although I found many times on myself a strong urge to buy again and again (Special photokina prizes).
The time passed by and I found my self pondering about all this abudance of special products. When I got back to my office I started looking at my photos, my loved ones. These were the photos that I could recognize my self back there as a thinking entity. Gear of course was there but it was hard to remember which was exactly the components I used but rather the principles I applied.
This is perhaps the part I think that all that many options somehow get into the middle of the thinking process. They drives us to not think about the principles we need to apply but just for the gear itself. Somehow all this gear can be considered then as noise that hinders your/our thinking process.
Somehow I think that simplicity is an important human ingredient that we need in all our processes (and creative processes are part of that as well). I think we live at times where we have started overproducing and we are called to overconsume again and again and this somehow can drive us away from our goals.
What are your thoughts on the issue?
Thanks for your time
Alex