A friend of mine is a serious photographer. Or was. He invested heavily over the years, good cameras, multiple lenses, equipment that most hobbyists would envy. It is all stored away safely now. He regrets not pursuing the hobby more actively. The technology moved on, he tells me. Mirrorless cameras replaced DSLRs. Metal lenses arrived. What he has feels dated. And so the cameras sit.
I understood that feeling more than I admitted.
A couple of years ago I went out shooting with a group of bird photographers. Bird photography is a different discipline. It requires telephoto zoom lenses, the kind that let you observe a bird at a distance and fill the frame with it at full length. These photographers had serious equipment. Long, heavy lenses that meant business.
My lenses had zoom capability. Just not like anything they were carrying.
I got intimidated. Not by the photographers themselves. They were generous and welcoming. But by the gap between what they had and what I had. I started worrying that I would eventually feel compelled to spend money I did not want to spend just to keep up. So I quietly stopped going out with them.
That was the wrong decision. But it took me a while to see it.
A few weeks ago I picked up the camera again and made a deliberate choice. I had been carrying three lenses every time I went out. The constant switching between them was a distraction, always wondering if I had the right one on, always second guessing. So I decided to carry just one.
A prime lens. 85mm.
A prime lens does not zoom. If you want to get closer to your subject, you move your feet. That is the only option. It sounds like a limitation and it is. But limitations have a way of focusing the mind.
In downtown Phoenix, shooting with just the 85mm, I got some shots wrong. Angles I misjudged. Distances I miscalculated. But I was thinking differently, about composition, about where I was standing, about how I was relating to the subject rather than just adjusting a lens to compensate.
When I messaged my friend about it, he was happy. Happy that I was picking up the camera again. Happy that I was writing again too. His cameras are still stored away. But something in the conversation felt like a small door opening.
You do not need the perfect equipment to pursue what you love. You need the one lens you already have and the willingness to move your feet.
Constraints do not limit you. They teach you.
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