I can do it all

What has always made me reflect while assembling my photographic gear is the idea of finding a “total” solution a way to capture every kind of photograph with just one body and one lens. I leave the complications and the pursuit of technical perfection to others.

In principle, it’s a rather logical thought, but… we are photographers.

The problem often lies in one of the most coveted yet fruitful triggers for artistic growth: the comparison with our peers. Every time we visit an exhibition or head out to shoot in company, we observe, we absorb, we learn something new. Setting aside the fact that what we learn isn’t always “right” (a point I won’t dwell on now, but will wrap up later), when we return home and look at our photos, something is always missing.

It might be the shallow depth of field of a fast prime, or conversely, the infinite focus of a small sensor. Perhaps the impeccable perspective of a mid-telephoto for portraits, the formal balance of the 4/3 format, or the spectacular dynamism of 2/3… You name the deficiency; find that “or” between these and any others you have! I know something is missing—there’s no room for the conditional here.

In these moments, more often than not, an imaginary animal I’ve come to know through the web appears: the monkey. It’s that thing that pushes us to seek other solutions just to do what others are doing. However, it must be said that emulation is the first step of artistic growth—a fundamental and ever-present stage in a photographer’s evolution. Even the greats do it! At the start of a career, you begin with a course that teaches the basics: shutter speed, aperture, depth of field… and what initially attracts us are the various technical challenges.

These small challenges allow us to deploy all our erudition, enabling us to say: IT COULD WORK! (Please, read this phrase slowly, shouting every single word with clarity and emphasis, and definitely do not forget to keep your eyes bulging with ecstatic excitement).

But then, you have to buy the lens that makes certain things possible—the one used by that guy who did that thing… because suddenly, that “hassle-free” camera and lens combination has limits. You realize it can’t do everything. Enter the monkey. But often, it turns into a big, ugly, hairy, and pissed-off ape that forces us to look at our financial situation with very little lucidity just to satisfy the wild beast!

There are certain things you learn with time, through disappointments, but also by reaching the goals you set for yourself. Photography is vast. Personally, I admire certain genres, like wildlife photography, but I would never do it because I find the practice utterly boring. Similarly, I don’t do theater photography because, in the countryside, there are no real opportunities to work seriously at it, and I can’t buy incredibly expensive lenses that I wouldn’t even use for free. So, photography is a matter of possibility as much as choice.

I find it quite important to define our essence as photographers—whether we do it for work or passion—by briefly identifying what we like or dislike. I certainly won’t buy a 600mm lens that weighs more than it costs, because I don’t take pictures of birds, nor will I ever go to photograph a lion in the wild: I’d probably do everything except take its picture. Like running away!

However, the concept doesn’t have to be so macroscopic. There can be simpler choices, like my decision to stop using extremely wide lenses. Not because I don’t like playing with perspective—on the contrary, I like it a lot—but I’ve noticed that if I use lenses wider than 20mm on full frame, there is a sort of disconnection from my way of storytelling. Calling these choices “simple” might be wrong, or at least reductive, but they certainly influence the formation of a well-defined artistic personality.

Quite simply, you cannot photograph everything. Robert Capa said that the world is full of photographs, and it is up to us to find them (I don’t know the exact quote, but I know the concept very well!). But the world is big! Can I be capable of taking every possible photograph? I envy those who can. I limit myself to taking those that interest me. I use my photographic knowledge not to take every shot possible, but to take, time after time, the photographs I care about.

Because in the end, the only photography that truly matters is the one we have been able to inhabit.