Reply To: you're not a real photographer because your camera is too small/ not full frame

[EyeDocPhotog]

Amen to that, emf.

My sister-in-law is creative director for a top corporate CI firm here in NYC. 30 years back, when she attended F.I.T., her photography course professor required each student turn in a photo as their end-of-year project. Most students shot hundreds of photos, some only 50, and all spent many hours / days poring over them – thinking, comparing, asking others, even going to the MoMA to seek out curators’ opinions.

Fran? Spent all year casually looking for what she thought was the best shot. Only produced 1 photo. Best in the class. A B&W of a guy in a wrinkled suit sitting on a park bench, hands folded in front of him, looking down, clearly contemplating something life-changing. Blows me away even today when I look at it. And I’ve been looking at it for 25 years.

Her camera was a Kodak instamatic. These days it’s her cell phone, and she still produces these mind-blowing images of things that seem to allude me and my 1Dx and L-glass. Oh I can come VERY CLOSE to her images after 7 years and 75,000 photos of practice, but there’s always a difference that makes hers just THAT much better – usually it’s composition.