My cameras have changed (again)
When I was 16, my biggest passion in life was downhill mountain biking. If you didn’t know where I was, chances are I was in a bike park, or in my local park where my friends and I built dirt jumps. The very dirt jumps that would be removed by angry council workers, only for us to build them again the following week.
If I wasn’t on my bike, I was at work making money to spend on bikes. If I wasn’t at work, I was undercutting local bike shops by going round people’s houses and fixing their bikes for a fraction of the cost so I could buy the latest disc brakes.
My life was consumed by cycling, and I clearly remember one evening sitting on eBay looking at, you guessed it, bikes, when I stumbled across a listing for one I was after. The reason for the sale left me screwing up my face like an offended politician. “I lost interest in mountain biking.”
Excuse my French, but “How the fuck can anyone lose interest in mountain biking?!” I exclaimed.
Well, fast forward ten years, and I found myself in the same boat. While I haven’t lost interest in cycling, I certainly have when it comes to throwing myself off dirt jumps and hoping not to break anything.
When I was 25, my life was consumed by cars. I worked in test and development at Jaguar Land Rover, I had a business importing Japanese sports cars into the UK, I drove an obnoxiously loud BMW 335i like I stole it, and all my spare time and money went on cars. Fast forward five years, and I couldn’t care less.
When I turned 30, I lived out of a backpack and travelled full time for over four years. The thought of having a “normal” life filled me with dread. Fast forward to today, and I am writing this from my comfy sofa in my apartment full of stuff.
What I am sharing with you is the reality that people change, whether consciously or otherwise. What was once the biggest thing in your life can, today, be something you simply don’t care about. Change is inevitable, and I think it should be embraced.
The same thing happened with my attitude towards cameras. At first I used Fuji exclusively and rejected any hint of experimenting with other brands. It wasn’t until Hasselblad reached out wanting to work together that I got the opportunity to try something different. That process sent me on a wild goose chase of trying different brands, and before long I had a Fuji, Sony, Hasselblad, Ricoh, and a Leica for good measure.
After spending time with all of these cameras, I became frustrated because I could never decide which one I wanted to use. It’s true, the more choice you have, the harder the decision. Eventually, this led me to sell everything apart from my two Sony bodies, which had become my bread and butter.
Fast forward to today, and I find myself getting bored using the same camera every time. While the art of photography is what ultimately drives me, maybe, just maybe, the camera itself is also part of that enjoyment. So my attitude and cameras have changed again.
I still have my Sony as my “work” camera, but I also have a Q3, an X100VI, a Ricoh, the X2DII, and a few other random things. I now see having all this choice as a luxury, and I count my blessings every time I need to decide which camera to take out. The decision doesn’t paralyse me anymore because each system has a clear role. Instead, I get excited about using a different camera and experiencing the best that each brand has to offer.
Change is guaranteed. You can either embrace it, ignore it, or fight it. I’ve tried all three, and I have found that embracing it leads to better outcomes, more peace, greater fulfilment, and ultimately, a happier life.
