There’s a joke in the photography world that photographers have GAS.
No, I’m not talking about what you think. GAS stands for “Gear Acquisition Syndrome”.
Since technology is evolving so fast, new cameras, lenses, and every kind of trinket are flooding the market and overwhelming photographers. We feel we need it all and sometimes stick to the false idea that having better gear obviously means taking better pictures.
When I bought my first camera, I went for the cheapest one I could find. It was an entry-level, budget DSLR, with an underperforming kit lens and a very flimsy tripod that often couldn’t handle the weight of my camera.
Many of my friends bought endless different lenses, filters, and flash units, but I decided to stick with what I had and see what I could achieve.
A month later, I was the only one who had started to sell prints of my images without buying any new gear.
Photography is not about how expensive and varied your gear is. Of course, it sometimes feels limiting to not have a better or wider lens or a higher number of megapixels… but I try to embrace those limitations and work with what I have.
To create better images, composition, storytelling, and processing are far more important than just getting new gear.
Knowing how to compose a photo properly and enhancing it in Lightroom can turn any image taken with any camera into a stunning and perfectly saleable one. And that includes photos taken with phones!
Some of my best images have been taken with my older cameras, such as this one:
Or this photo taken with my smartphone in India:
Now there’s even a special version of Lightroom for phone photos, too.
So let’s get rid of our GAS problems and learn how to create better images with what we currently have.