Recently while looking for a copy of the book Dream Street: W. Eugene Smith’s Pittsburgh Project on eBay I stumbled across an ad entitled “W Eugene Smith Camera Equipment Minamata”. Mostly run of the mill Minolta and Canon cameras with their lenses and some third party lenses, some Olympus rangefinders and a cheapo beat-up camera bag. Nevertheless, it could all be yours for fifteen grand or best offer!  I have no idea what the collectible value of Smith’s gear is, but it was used to make truly outstanding and important work and is part of photographic history! In any case, I only point this out to show you that you don’t need to spend boatloads on equipment to make great photographs. Don’t get me wrong; this stuff wasn’t junk, but it wasn’t Nikon or Leica and it certainly didn’t cost what Nikon or Leica did either.

When the Minamata photographs were first published in Life Magazine, I was eighteen years old, but by that time I had a Nikon F2! And while it was and still is one of the great 35mm SLRs of all time it didn’t help me make monumental pictures like Gene Smith’s!

We all worry about our gear to a degree and many of us suffer from GAS thinking that owning the “best” camera or lens will somehow enable us to make the best photographs. It took me a long time to stop chasing that misguided dream, but when I stopped things were a lot better.  That doesn’t mean I don’t have good equipment, but I was finally able to understand that it was the seeing that really mattered.

Looking at what Smith used to make his tremendous work is truly a humbling experience and should be a lesson to us all.

Stay well,

Michael