What should I take...

I have commented before about the phenomenon that sees ordinary, otherwise sensible people apparently turn into blathering, indecisive jellies when confronted with a keyboard, an internet connection and an audience on a photo forum. There is a particular variant of that malady that tends to manifest itself in the Summer months - the thread that starts "I'm going to [insert as applicable] and I can't decide whether to just take [insert interminably long list of equipment] or whether I should also take [insert equally long list of equipment] what do you think?"

Leaving aside the probability that:

a) The audience doesn't know a lot about the poster in terms of their tastes, skills etc.,

b) Most of said audience doesn't know anything material about the proposed holiday destination either,

c) The destination given ("Europe", "China", "South America"...) is so vague that no answer can be meaningful,

and

d) Most of said audience only ever give the same answer to any such query based upon their own tastes and preferences.

The quality and usefulness of response is going to be dubious at best and bloody useless at worst.

So why (oh why) do people persist in these ridiculous threads? There can be only one answer.

They're boasting.

Yes.

That's it. They are simply taking the opportunity for a spot of self-aggrandisement. In fact, the seemingly innocent "holiday question" is a great 2 for 1:

a) I am going somewhere special/expensive/hard to get to

b) I have lots of expensive kit

This last is a particularly modern form of hubris. In the ancient world, excessive pride was a crime. Crowing over one's peers, or indeed one's vanquished foes, was regarded as very bad form indeed, much as owning an f1 Noctilux today and openly musing as to the benefits of adding a f.0.95 Noctilux to your collection of humidity-controlled dust-gatherers is guaranteed to reduce any right-thinking fellow photographer (for which read "real photographer") to acts of mindless irritation. The "autosignature" is a particular refinement of this phoenomenon, enabling the poster to re-state their entire palette of toys with the press of a button. I do wonder at the mentality of those whose signature is both longer and more interesting than their posts, however.

The only form of this question that makes any real sense is "From your own direct experience, what is [location x] like?". Any photographer with half a brain can do their own online research these days; the likes of Flickr and Google Earth provide the opportunity to find out what others have done, and what a given location looks like. The old advice used to be to go to a newsagents on arrival and look at the postcards - now with the "global village" we can browse through others' snaps, tagged - geotagged, even - without leaving the comfort of our own armchairs.

What is invaluable is "local knowledge" - places to eat, to sit, where photography is encouraged, where it is frowned upon, where and how the scam artists operate, how to get around, where the best beer is to be found. All of the above come from personal experience. People who have been there, or even better, live there -in other words, those least likely to be impressed by your ability to travel there.


I chose the lens, body, aperture, shutter speed and destination all by myself...


I don't want or need someone to pick my kit for me. I don't want someone to oo and ah over my equipment - unless they are particularly attractive, of course - I don't need people to be impressed by my choice of destination, or by the size of my wallet. It's useful to know that the lighting in museum x is particularly low, or that the queues for art gallery y only get bad after 10AM, but telling me that I absolutely must take a wide-angle or I will miss some great shots is about as useful as a photograph of a rope to a drowning man.

No, I don't care how much you have spent on where you are going, or the money you have invested in what you might take, but if I've been there before, I'll gladly give you my opinion on the place - provided you aren't just boasting, of course...


Bill

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- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission.