The Best Camera

So, you read the title of this post and you think I’m going to tell you about the best camera to own or buy or the best camera I ever owned. 

But I’m not.  I’m going to tell you about a book.

Wandering through the Salem Public Library today, one of my favorite haunts, I came upon a book.  The title of the book made me pick it up.  Flipping through the book made me check it out.  What’s the book?  “The Best Camera Is the One That’s with You” by Chase Jarvis.  It happens to be specifically iPhone photography, but that’s besides the point.  I don’t have an iPhone.  I do have a camera phone, though.

What made me pick this book up was the very post that I wrote yesterday, Moments Such as These, when I talked about being in the moment and maxing it out.  Photography is less about what equipment you are using and more about what you see and choose to capture.  Whatever camera you have (unless it’s physically broken) is capable of taking good pictures. 

Look.  Notice.  See.  Learn the quirks of your camera and the limitations and use them to your advantage.  Work with what you have and max it out.  Don’t let what you don’t have be a barrier to going out there and just doing it.  Experiment.  Cover the lens with saran wrap.  Turn the flash on.  Turn it off.  Keep the camera super steady.  Purposely move the camera.  See what happens, but don’t stop.

So, if you’re hanging out at the library, or the bookstore, pick up this book and flip through its pages.  Get inspired by what a camera phone (in this case the iPhone) can do.  Check out pinhole photography –  can’t get any simpler.  Search the internet for point and shoot photos, toy camera photos, camera phone photos, and know that it’s not the equipment that limits you – unless you let it.

Broaden your horizons.  Spread your wings.  Experiment a little.  Change your perspective.  You might just like what you get!  And, it goes without saying – this applies to life too.  Just had to point out the obvious there…