220 . . . 221_Whatever_It_Takes

Is it just me or does it seem to anyone else like the days are getting shorter - and I don't mean because we are on the downhill slide toward the winter solstice? Technology is changing so rapidly and there's a lot of pressure to stay on top of it all and to keep growing with it and that just seems to suck up so much time. Seriously! I check in on other photog blogs from time to time and read posts that sound like the shooter is a physics professor at MIT with all the techno updates (I admittedly always had the same feeling though when reading anything from Galen Rowell) - what happened to focusing on making great images???

So I'm not sure if the pressure is self-inflicted or real - I mean technology CAN allow one tools to make images that could possibly be construed a "better" (but we get into having to define so many other elements including 'better' that that is another discussion altogether) - it definitely CAN, but it doesn't necessarily. And sometimes while technology can simplify things, the process of gaining and learning the technology just slows things down (I spent 2 hours one day this week just swapping in a new printer for my old one including updating the software for Snow Leopard, etc. - it all takes time!) Are we spending so much time focusing on technology that we are forgetting about the work?

I love making images and I live for it every day - but technology for me is just a means to an end, not the end itself. If I have the kind of free time that it would take to come up to an engineering level of understanding of the inner workings of my camera - well I can actually think of a lot of other things that I would do with that time - such as work on making better images. As I have shared before, you won't find a new post here every time Apple releases a new product or Canon updates their firmware and I don't share a lot of information on how to become a better photographer - there just isn't time in the day for all of that. While I won't give up my full frame sensor anytime soon and I love the doors now opening with motion capture offered by the 5DII and the like, "CCD Vs. CMOS" (or insert most any other super-photo-technical topic here) is a question that to me is not far off from Michael Keaton's response in Mr. Mom (dating myself) when asked about a home improvement project, "220 . . . 221 - whatever it takes." It just doesn't matter if it gets the job done. Is it the best that Canon/Apple currently offer - great, sign me up. I'd rather be out making newer, better images or, well, just having a pool party with my daughter on a perfect summer afternoon - or better yet, BOTH.