The One Lens, One Camera Syndrome

One Lens, One Camera or ...

You already know that repeating story about this or that photographer that has gotten rid of all his or her precious and abundant photo equipment to be more creative free with a minimalist one lens-one camera (body) combination. It happens periodically and it is adding a lot to the controversy opposing the other extreme that propose to have the latest models and an extensive array of lenses and accessories.

But is it really better to impose you (material) limits at a level that will deter any attempt to transgress any material obvious limitations? Sure, you want to specialize your point of view that will represent your style or your picture signature. Many good photographers have already done this, but you have to remember that their working context was very different in the past because of the lack of photo equipment availability, the technical limitations in optics, in image supports (films) and post-processing were specific conditions of their time.

... Two (or more), better than one? ...

Today things have evolved and are still evolving at a fast rate. We are by far a lot more photo educated even in the case of the less photo interested audiences. Ignoring those facts is simply restringing our own capacity to share our works because of the inherent today exigences.

Does it mean that you have to over equip yourself to be able to produce a successful original picture? No for sure, but it can help you if you can extend your technical versatility even slightly just to prevent an eventual succession of repetitive images. Sometimes you need a new point of view to explore that will help to flourish your creativity. It can be a technique, it can be a camera process, it can be a lens, it can be a lighting aid, etc. Because the same basic subject may be represented in such many other ways that are beneficial to our own vision.

We don't want to encourage redundancies, material over expenses and waist, or simply working incapacity provoked by overabundance of photo equipment. And for most of us, less can be far better that more and more. And we want also to master properly what we own already to extract it the best of our photographic vision of this world. But trying something else is also part of the creative experiment.

... Or purists may ask for a fix focal lens oppose to a vari-focal optic?

Minimalism is not a bad thing by itself and demonstrate an effort to reach the finest use of a photo equipment. It helps to conceive and refine our own visual signature. It imposes to ourselves to transgress other contextual limits to our photography such our choice of subjects or surroundings. But even being minimalist must not prevent ourselves to be open to something else, something new, something disturbing that will force us to reach another creative level.