Saturday, 29 September 2012

Camera Snobbery

I dip in and out of photographing ice hockey. I've been a photographer for two different teams in three years.

Anyway, the other weekend I at the rink and the opposing team had brought their photographer along. That's no big deal, it happens every now and then, not a lot but it happens.
After warm-up we're stood under the stairwell and my buddy, who also photographs for the team, says to the guy, "We were admiring your camera before." The guy then goes on about how much his camera set him back, about  €1,885, because it's a Nikon and Nikon are the greatest thing since slice bread. He then asks what cameras we use, my friend says he uses a Nikon too, which gets the response: "Good man!". When he asked me I said I use an Olympus and the guy booed me, he actually booed me. He'd of wet his pants if I'd have said I used a Leica or a Hasselblad.

Now, I'm not saying Nikon are bad cameras. They're not, they're very good. But I don't see what the big deal is. It's a bit like Canon too. People get a bit worked up about them too. It seems that they're the only brand of camera worth having. Don't have one? Poor you, you must feel so bad.

Its camera snobbery and it needs to stop! Don't judge me or anyone else on the brand of camera used, but on the photographs taken. Judge the photographer and the photographs.

I use an Olympus because I was given one as an 18th birthday present, and it came with two lenses. When I chose to buy a new D-SLR body, I bought another Olympus because I didn't want to buy new lenses to go with it.

Olympus is just fine. Their cameras take photographs just like every other brand. And didn't David Bailey used to endorse or promote Olympus back in the 80's/90's, which coined the catchphrase "Who do you think you are, David Bailey?".

Enough of the camera snobbery. It doesn't matter if you can with Canon, you are a Nikon or shoot with something else. What matters, and what counts, are the photographs you take. You can have the greatest kit in the world, but if you don't take great photos, then it doesn't really count for much does it?

Thursday, 27 September 2012

Hello!

Hi everyone!

I've recently graduated from university where I studied photography. 

This is my blog about photography post-university, the photographs I take and the stories behind them. So come along on the ride with me!

I do have a flickr, which can be found here: flickr.com/photos/raipekkanen

I also have a twitter: @raipekkanen

I have a Facebook page too, should you wish to follow me on there too!: facebook.com/raipekkanen

At the moment there isn't a lot going on with any of them, as I've just set them all up! But hold on and hang around and I should start putting tweets out for you to read and photos for you to see.

Räi x