- The hammer a carpenter wields does not build your house.
- The scissors your barber uses do not cut your hair on their own.
- The car you drive will not go unless you know how to start it, put your foot on the pedal, and steer it.
- The sewing machine a seamstress uses does not produce beautiful clothes.
- That fabulous dinner you cooked last week has nothing to do with how awesome your stove is. Does it?
Every photographer has heard the following at one point or another: “You take the greatest pics; you must have an expensive camera.” It makes the hair on my neck stand up every time I hear it.
The next time you think you might say that, or something similar, please just don’t. It’s not a compliment even if you intend it be.
I do have a decent camera but, just for reference, this is a cell phone shot- not a picture from a “big fancy camera”.
And while my phone camera will take a decent shot on auto, it took a little know how to make sure the image didn’t get blown out from the blast of the setting sun. I adjusted lighting and contrast, ISO, and saturation in the phone before I shot it, and then adjusted the light further after shooting it to kill off more of the light blast on the left.
If I hadn’t done all of that, the picture certainly wouldn’t be the same. Allowing the camera to choose settings on its own, the sun would have blown everything out making the clouds impossible to distinguish, not to mention the overbearing orange color on everything.
While the right tools make any job better, even the best tools produce nothing of value unless they are in the hands of someone who has the skill and expertise to use them.