Today Claire is jumping on here and talking about a topic that is SO important. We all love shiny new sparky things….and it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that new lens is going to make me awesome. Well that may be partially true….but not entirely. Hear Claire’s words of wisdom on this topic…

For a beginner photographer it can be overwhelming to think about the amount of gear there is to pick from and the amount of money it costs to purchase it all. A big question I’ve frequently gotten asked is “What camera should I buy to start with?” Though this is an important question to ask, I think a better question is “How can I use the gear I have now and capture an image more beautifully?”

When I first started out in photography, I had the most common and user friendly DSLR on the market. It was a Canon Rebel with a kit lens. I thought it was amazing and had bought it to start shooting weddings. WEDDINGS! Can you believe that? Well, that is just what I did. I used that Rebel to shoot many weddings that first couple of years. My first ones were horrible. I’m not joking. I was bad. And I had no idea what I was doing. Then I got the great blessing of second shooting a wedding with a very good, local wedding photographer. Just being able to bounce questions off of her and see how she captured images so beautifully allowed me to be able to start really understanding how to properly use the gear that I had. And you know what? My images got better. Much better. The more I understood how to properly use and control what I already had, the better my photography got. It’s not always about the gear, it’s about so much more. It’s about the light, it’s about the depth of field, it’s about the beauty of the subject.

Now, eventually I did outgrow the Rebel, and especially the kit lens. Actually, that first second shooting experience inspired me to buy more specified lenses, albeit still relatively inexpensive ones. They were the Tamron 28-75 mm f/2.8 for around $499 and the Canon 50mm f/1.8 for around $125 brand new. They are a fraction of the price of a prime lens and they revolutionized my shooting. I used the 1.8 for about 5 years before upgrading and I STILL shoot with that Tamron.

So instead of thinking great gear will make you a great photographer…ask how can you use what you have now to capture an image more beautifully? Begin with this…especially if you are like me and have to start on  a very tight budget.

Hope this helps take a little of the pressure and the cold sweats off the ones who are just beginning the photography journey. Blessings!

And we will leave you with this…

Meet out newest addition to our studio plant collection. We named him Charlie. ;-)

Have a great weekend! Xo