It’s funny. I must have typed out and subsequently deleted my intended intro for Chris at least six times now. It’s not because I don’t know what to write about Chris, but rather how can I limit it to the bare essentials when there truly is so much to the man. Chris is the closest thing to a non-biological (although it hasn’t been proven yet) older [read: much older] brother that I have. For all intents and purposes, he is family to me and, much like family, he can rile me up with the best of them and is always there whenever I need him. He is not just a fantastic photographer, but an awesome musician and one of the coolest fathers/husbands that I know. Chris has introduced me to a whole new realm of technical photography and I am a better shooter because of him. Despite my lack of being able to see 2/3 of our primary colors, he always plays to that and ensures that he understands what I see and, more importantly, I understand what I see.

I’m a lucky person to know Chris and I’m thrilled that he has finally made his way into this Alt Perspective series.

You can follow Chris on Flickr, Twitter, and Facebook

We are living in a material world, and I am a material girl – Chris Halford

Alternate title A: Why it’s ok to lust after expensive gear, premium gear, gear that suggests status.
Alternate title B: How I manage to look at myself in the mirror after a trip to B&H

Brian M knows I love me some toys. He knows I will buy gear that makes other people drool. He knows that I’m a fan of his work, and that I’ll support his sick and self-serving need to buy crazy lenses whenever he needs a creative boost. Because of this, I’m #2 on his speed dial. Brian, you are not alone. I am here to help.

So Brian calls me (again) and starts the conversation with a big sigh. Should he buy the Canon EF 14mm f/2.8L or not… Or was it the TS-E 17mm f/4L… no, for sure it was the 14mm… the long drawn out discussion about the 17mm was about a year ago and a year long, and if you follow Brian’s work, you know how that turned out. (go look at his portfolio… almost all 17mm!)

Anyway, as I was saying, he called and went on about the 14mm f/2.8L, an interesting lens to say the least. Maybe it has more in common with the Loch Ness monster than most Canon lenses if I base my judgment purely on how frequently I’ve seen one in the wild. Immediately intrigued, “why not” cascades from my lips. Why not indeed? It’s a cool lens that rates well, and falls straight into the type of wide shooting that he likes.

(In fact, what I think I said was, “As your attorney, I advise you to rent a very fast car with no top. And you’ll need the cocaine. Tape recorder for special music. Acapulco shirts. Get the hell out of L.A. for at least 48 hours. Take all the premium glass you can get your hands on.”)

“You shoot wide”, I say, “why not have the widest lens that Canon makes?”
“Then I’d sell the EF 16-35”, says he, about the most underwhelming, but should be overwhelming lens Canon makes, “and I can pretty much fund it right there. I prefer primes anyway.”

Why not indeed!  There are good reasons that Brian, assuming he was a logically minded individual without a crippling glass addiction, would decide against this lens. Let’s indulge this line of reasoning for a bit:

• He has the 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM. This is a cool lens that many desire.
• He has the 17mm F/4 Tilt-Shift… a beautiful lens by all standards that is only 3mm less wide than the 14mm. Only 3 millimeters. (That’s like a half-quart for those of you who don’t know metric).
• Dismiss the argument that it’s fast (f/2.8) when compared with his TS-E (f/4) because he shoots HDR of landscape and urban scenes at f/11 or smaller.
• It’s over 2,000 clams!!!

Right… good… lots of reasons not to do this. Tons. More than 2,000 of them for most people. But I would put good money on his buying it anyway. Needless to say, he had it in his hot little appropriately man-sized hands less than 24 hours later. However, I personally don’t believe any good has ever come from finding reasons NOT to do things. I bet there were lots of good reasons not to send a man to the moon, develop some controversial life-saving drugs or watch the Big Lebowski for the 40th time, but I personally stand by the benefits of all those things.

So:
-Why did he buy a lens that he didn’t “need”?
-Why did I buy a 5D Mark II and a 1D Mark IV that I didn’t need, since I have a 1Ds Mark III?
-Why does our friend Jason buy about a billion cool old film cameras in an age when digital rules?
-Why do any of the people I know who share the affliction of being L-Coholics (addicted to buying canon L-series lenses) buy half the sh!t that they buy although their day-jobs that ARE NOT photography?

Is the answer as simple, as stated in the title, “we are living in a material world”?

“But!,” you say, “but materialism is bad!!!” Hellz to the no! Materialism is only part of the picture.

Here is a personal example that rings true to me. My darling daughter, at the age of 15, declared that she wanted a Leica badly. Being 15, but going on 30, she had the ability to see through her own thought-patterns and say, “but that’s silly right, because I’ve never even shot one”. Well, of course it’s silly because there is no way in H-E-double-hockey-sticks I’m buying her a $5k+ camera for a name and goofy red circle! Or is there a way?

What would happen if I bought my daughter a Leica that she wanted more for the logo and status than the image quality or usability? She’d be proud of this cool camera and would want to be seen with it. That’d push her to hang it like a trophy around her neck and go out. I bet she’d go everywhere with it. And boy, having a camera around her neck all the time would probably make it easier for her to take pictures all the time. Being a skilled photographer in her own right, that would probably mean she’d get more practice at what she loved and it would get her closer to the 10,000 hours of experience that Malcolm Gladwell preaches about in ‘Outliers’. If I bought my daughter a $5,000 camera, would I be contributing to her exposure to photography, even if it were fueled by materialistic aspirations? Probably. Besides, Leica lenses are really all that!

What was I saying? Right, the EF 14mm f/2.8L….If Brian buys that lens, will he be proud of owning it, shoot with it, blog about it, gain experience and more personal exposure? Jiminy Crickets yeah he will. That lens, as Prince said best, is a “sexy motherf#cker!” Brian will use that lens, he will gain an experience many don’t and he will speak about it with pride. But to justify the purchase to his wife speak about it with pride, he had better take some pretty freaking fantastic shots that he can use as a platform to boast about, and build a self-fulfilling prophecy for the need for the lens in the first place.

But there is a more practical reason to buy the 14mm prime:

• Brian shoots wide. This is the widest lens Canon makes (aside from the funky fisheye, which he already owns)
• The Canon primes are superior to non-primes (if even marginally)
• Brian wants the best quality he can get, so having primes at all focal lengths allows him to capture exactly he wants with minimal cropping
• This is the right tool for a certain job. Photography is Brian’s calling, and he deserves the tools he needs to fulfill his destiny.

Brian, like so many of us, has been successfully brainwashed by Canon in their diabolical plot to sell more lenses. He believes that Canon lenses don’t realize their full value until one owns all of the collection. (In all fairness, I do think I saw that point referenced on the Antique Road Show.)

The most important reason: He wants it, and will take pictures with it, and photography is simply put, important. Let me say that again, Photography Is Important.

But, back to the story. Recently, Brian wrote an article addressing statements that “It’s not about the gear”. There is an implication that some photographers get caught up in the gear and not the skill and vision of photography. So what? If it gets photographers out shooting, then does it matter? Joe McNally states that he wasn’t born with a god-given skill, but that he built it up over years. Most of us are unlike Mozart, who was able to kick-ass performing his art for royalty at the age of 7. If someone buys a killer camera and lens, and they get out and use it because they love their gear, it’s all good baby!

Need another justification? I learned firsthand that the photographic urban legends are true… Good gear makes models behave. Once as I pulled out my 1Ds Mark III and Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L lens, Alex, my model, said “wow, that’s a serious camera”. I knew at that moment he’d perform well.

Photographers from Jay Maisel to Story Musgrave have made a strong case that as a photographer, you need to have your camera with you at all times, because you never know when opportunity will strike. Having a bit of kit that motivates you to carry a camera all the time is a good thing. Using it for any reason and building the experience it takes to become an expert is a fantastic thing. Brian will carry his 14mm around, so when a UFO lands over Boston, he’ll be ready. Of course UFOs move pretty fast, so he’ll have to “bracket it” quickly.

I had the great honor of meeting Story Musgrave (NASA astronaut and space photographer) during a convention in Cambridge. Story saw me in the greenroom and asked, “Is that a 1Ds Mark III and 5D?”. While “it’s not about the gear”, the gear I had did open up an interesting possibility simply because it caught the attention of someone who ended up inspiring me in so many important ways.
If you read any of Story’s books on photography, you’ll quickly see that the man’s opportunities came from always having a camera, and always looking for a shot. Story was the kind of guy who would perform hand-held light metering, while manually focusing a Hasselblad as you landed a jet (and I get in trouble for texting in my car!). That’s a bit much for most of us, but having the gear you love to use and be seen with is just another way to promote always being ready.

I took the above shot in Story’s office at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Right before I pointed the camera at him he asked about my lens choice. It was the recently purchased EF 85mm f/1.2L. If you are a Canon user, you know this lens is a thing of beauty. We had a bit of a chat about that focal length and maximum aperture for portraiture and then I snapped this shot. I think the connection we’ve had over gear and love of photography contributed to the spark in his eye and the sensitive personality that he allowed to pour through into this moment.

In closing, Dear Santa, I have been very very good, and eaten my vegetables. Please send me a Canon EF 200mm f/2L IS USM and/or a Medium Format digital camera. I desperately lust for them, and will use them daily.

I’ll leave cookies and chocolate milk out!