I was at a photographic convention just a short while ago. It was all hustle and bustle. There was frantic activity everywhere. There were lots of stands with manufacturers showing off their wares and plenty of workshops and other “hands on” activities going on.

Amongst the constant chatter and discussions, I heard many people talking technical language. They had a “4 gigabyte” this and a “16 megapixel” that. They had equipment costing a King’s ransom complete with state-of-the-art spangoolies that gave them the opportunity to take any image imaginable on this earth, and perhaps, beyond.

It was very overawing and I felt a little bit intimidated. After all, I own and use a simple 6-megapixel camera with a 512-megabyte memory card and just two lenses of mediocre quality.

How on earth did others, less experienced than me, feel?

It reminded me of my younger days. I used to do a lot of running. I was fairly good – nothing spectacular and I never won a race. The highest I came was 11th in a marathon. On competition days, I would mill around with the other competitors. They wore class gear, had all the sprays, potions and electrolyte drinks and did all the warm-up routines. There was much laughing, shouting and bravado.

It reminded me of the convention I attended.

The only difference was, with my running, I used to overtake most of these people. When I finished 11th there were over 1000 other competitors. I had no electrolyte drinks, fancy garments and had no fancy warm-up routine. Their outward appearances had no bearing on their skills.

That’s the way I think and I would like you to think that way as well. You can own as much equipment as you want and you can talk the fancy talk. But it’s the final images that count.

I’ll wager that I could hold my own with the majority of those photographers at the convention. And so could you.

Eric Hartwell runs the photography resource site http://www.theshutter.co.uk and the associated discussion forums as well as the regular weblog at http://thephotographysite.blogspot.com.

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