Less is more - carry less gear

Defiance

I love minimalism and try to apply the philosophy to most of my life, with varying success. It is difficult when most others seem to want more.

The application of the philosophy to photography is interesting. One can apply it to the gear one uses and there are successful photographers that use one camera and one lens. Of course looking back into the archives many of the greats did not have large numbers of cameras and lenses.

So ask yourself what do you actually need? A camera and a lens, possibly a filter such as a polarizer – an effect that cannot really be created digitally – a tripod possibly and a bag. Everything else is luxury.

Gull and lighthouse

What is the benefit of this approach? Travelling light allows you access to places you find difficult to get to with a large bag on your back. If you do street photography you do not stand out as a photographer. Perhaps the most important is that your back remains intact. It seems that one of the burdens of the wildlife/bird photographer is the carrying of large lenses and tripods with the impact this has on their lower backs.

I used to carry a large tripod, two camera bodies, at least three or four lenses and teleconvertors, lots of filters, an angle viewer, a flash or two and lots of gadgets. Now I carry a maximum of two lenses, possibly a Lensbaby and a couple of filters that I have learned help creating my vision. I also carry a notebook and pen to make notes on my why I have taken that particular shot and what my vision at the time was. I will cover this more in the next post.

So what is the attraction of minimalism as applied to gear? Carry less and concentrate more on images. Walk more, look more, see more. Become more au fait with your gear and learn to ‘see’ with each lens. You do not have to carry the same lens all the time.

Remember the two most important items of equipment for your photography are your eyes and your creative mind.

7 sticks

All images taken from mainprize.net.