What comes after the G.A.S.?
G.A.S. what the hell is that??? Well let me explain, it is the so-called Gear Acquisition Syndrome, a problem a lot of people who want to take (great) photos suffer from. Mostly it are men but, some women also might be affected. I had it as well; bought too much far too expensive stuff to take photo’s with. At some point it was enough, this point was reached when back in 2007, I planned a trip to Mali. During the preparations I learned that there’s a lot of dust in Mali. Too dangerous for all my “expensive equipment”. At the end of the day, I got a Panasonic FZ-50, my new tool survived sand and dust and I took my first portrait shown here.
Not bad for a start, I almost got healed. But then I bought a Canon 5D with L-Glass. Far too heavy and expensive and in 2015 I ended at Fujifilm X Pro: the end of my G.A.S. What comes after G.A.S.? First of all there is the widely unknown, P.B.A.S. (Photo Book Acquisition Syndrome). I am still suffering from this but this syndrome is more constructive, it is a source of inspiration. Maybe at some point I start to blog about all those books I have on my bookshelf. I currently suffer from the W.D.S. (Website Design Syndrome) and try to find an escape. For the previous website (photo-vinc.com) I spend far too much time on design of the site itself. Early 2018 I found my old website (Photo-Vinc.com) needed a successor, I decided to stay with WordPress as framework, got a nice theme and some promising plugins. The idea was to use everything without modification. This did not work out, I made a child theme to solve problems I saw, CSS to make things look consistent. It took me over 10 months of time to finalize this website. Far too much, to less time to work on the material I had from various trips. My advice? If you want to focus on images and present them, try something like SquareSpace. This will be much quicker als looks (almost) as good as your own design. And if you don´t follow my advice and want to know what I use then check the about section of this site where, at the end I explain which theme and plugins I used for this website. Can I help you? To keep it short: No, might be able to see some symptoms but I’m not able to heal you. You have to find your own way.
Hoe of wat,ik geniet altijd van je foto’s uit het leven geplukt.
Ik geniet altijd van je foto’s uit het volle leven geplukt
The subjects (content) of your photos and the beautiful BW tonality is what was most attractive of your work for me. Never thought too much about what equipment per se was used to achive these but certainly would have liked to know what/how the BW processing was to achieve your ‘look’. As for the subjects/compositions, well that is the person (you), not the tools, that make those happen.
Thanks for your feedback!
How the get that B&W look? difficult to say.
I not have a fixed procedure for B&W conversion, I am in a kind of flow when processing the photos in Lightroom. I not always take the same path, this makes it difficult to explain the details. Maybe at some point I write here in the blog about that.
That would be nice. Thanks.
I had to laugh at this post. I also suffer from G.A.S. but fortunately, don’t have the money to indulge in my syndrome. But as time goes by, I have sold or traded a couple of lenses as my needs change. Now I can’t afford any more gear, so I have changed to using a wheeled trolley bag to cart my heavy telephoto lens around my local urban area and on public transport.
I daresay I would have great trouble travelling interstate or overseas now as I can never decide which lens to take outdoors. They say the right lens is the one that you have with you at the time of shooting.
Love the portrait, especially the light on the subject’s faces which is just perfect.
Thanks 🙂
If you have Lightroom there’s a little trick for selecting the one and only single lens to go out with. Lightroom can provide you an overview of most used focal lenght(s). Of course you could take the focal length you use most but you also could decide for the opposite and try to see new things.
The trick is as you tell to use one single lens, but to carry all the stuff and lenses in your backpack to be prepared for harder hillwalks later. I use since several weeks only the long focal length and G.A.S. isn’t a problem for me, i’m dealing witht the problem of D.A.M.
Btw your photos are brilliant in every way! Thanks for sharing them.
D.A.M. is another challenge… I have learned that for me a good folder structure in combination with LR or iMatch works best.
Agree! Eens!