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Using Less Gear Will Actually Improve Your Photography

Jul 3, 2014 by Udi Tirosh 16 Comments

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Throw Away Your Camera Gear; Haoyuan Ren on InMyBag.net

If you think that getting the next lens, body or strobe will instantly improve your photography, photographer Haoyuan Ren suggests a different point of view (no pun intended).

Ren has been shooting for about seven years and is landing jobs with the big magazines and shooting celebrities (Tilda Swinton, Dean Norris shown above and Taylor Schilling stood in front of his lens). Interestingly, Ren’s advice for photographers is to use less gear.

In an interview with InMyBag Ren’s suggests to throw away as many pieces of gear as you can (or actually not to buy them in the first place). Ren advices that:

These days, we are constantly told by manufacturers through advertisements and reviews that having the next best thing will bring us better pictures.  In reality, it’s not always the case…

And has a valid point as to why too much gear is actually bad for you:

Too much gear will slow you down, not just physically, but you’ll have too many technical choices.
The benefit is that less gear gets you thinking creatively, in both problem solving & shooting.
Push you from your comfort zone, get you trying new things, this in turn helps keeps your style fresh.

So it is no surprise that Ren’s baseline kit is not that big, he carries a Nikon D800, 3 lenses (Nikon 85mm f1.8, 35mm f1.8, 50mm f1.4) and a Ricoh GR, along with some small miscellaneous items.

Throw Away Your Camera Gear; Haoyuan Ren on InMyBag.net

Hard to argue with the results. (The original post has a few more incredible photographers operating on minimal gear)

[How to Get More Creative: Throw Your Camera Gear Away | InMyBag]

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Filed Under: Gear Tagged With: Camera Gear, GAS, Gear Acquisition Syndrome, Haoyuan Ren

About Udi Tirosh

Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.

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