I was reading about how Edward Weston at one point had expressed a strong desire for a better lens than his Turner Riech and a better camera (Century Universal IIRC) and I thought "Wow, Edward Weston was a magic bullet chaser, too!" but most of his more famous photographs were taken with the Turner Reich and his old camera, so EW didn't need new gear to make photographs, but rather desired new gear not for taking photos, but because, I'm guessing, he thought a better lens or a more solid or perhaps lighter wieght) camera might make his work easier. But not "better."

On a saxophone site I sometimes surf, the topic is "What saxophone or mouthpiece will make me sound like Paul Desmond, or John Coultrane, or Dave Koz and the answer is almost universally that whichever set up you play, you're going to sound like yourself. Some old time jazz musicians traded horns yet always sounded like "themselves" irrespective of which horn/mouthpiece they were playing.

I'm wondering if that is also the situation with photo gear. Someone might buy a Ansco (or Hassy) because Ansel Adams shot an Ansco (or Hassy) and might even hike up to the "diving board" or drive out to Hernandez, NM to photograph the church, but the resulting photos won't be Ansel Adams simply because Ansel Adams hadn't a hand in the photographic process other than to inspire a later 'tog to go do it ( OK, maybe they've got an Adams filter in photoshop now---I wouldn't know about that) I'm thinking that Edward Weston's worlkwould look very much like it looks today if he'd shot an Ebony and the latest from Schnieder just as Ansel Adam's work wouldn't be much different even if he didn't trade in his Turner Riech for the Cooke. Anyway, thats my offering on this sleepless Sunday night. Perhaps we are as individual in our vision as horn players are in their music.

Your thoughts?