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Two Ways to Break Your Photography Gear Addiction

Chris Gampat
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Last updated on 05/12/2016
05/12/2016
2 Mins read
Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Zeiss 18mm f2.8 product images (2 of 9)ISO 2001-200 sec at f - 2.8
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Last Updated on 05/12/2016 by Chris Gampat

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It’s very true that many photographers can become addicted to photography gear–otherwise known as gear addiction syndrome. Essentially, it’s marketing and consumerism that fuels this in addition to the fact that they’re telling you that you’re not good enough. It’s possible that you may not be, but the only way to get better is to educate yourself…or is it.

Method 1

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Leica Q camera product shots (2 of 13)ISO 4001-50 sec at f - 2.8

  • Purchase a Leica
  • Get a lens
  • Get another lens
  • Buy yet another lens
  • Put it all on a credit card and worry about paying it all off when you can make money from your products
  • Go out and shoot stuff without any direction
  • Realize your Leica is crap
  • Buy another Leica, but this time film

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Leica M60 review images (17 of 23)ISO 2001-180 sec at f - 1.4

  • Go shoot film
  • Develop film
  • Love 2 out of 36 images
  • Buy more film
  • Shoot more film
  • Tell yourself that film sucks
  • Sell your Leica stuff and go with Canon
  • Buy two 5D bodies, 24-70mm, 70-200mm, 50mm f1.2, 85mm f1.2, and 135mm f2
  • Go try to shoot weddings
  • Hate weddings
  • Get out of weddings
  • Sell Canon gear and go to Sony
  • Credit Card gets maxed out so use another credit card
  • Now buy Sony
  • Get two high end a7 series cameras and their beautiful high end lenses
  • Realize you don’t know what you want to do with them
  • Find a calling
  • Shoot and try to promote your work just by blasting it out there
  • End up in debt
  • End up poor
  • Sell gear
  • Get yourself off of gear and just shoot with your phone.

Method 2

This method is much more practical and it’s generally the method that actual photographers who decide to make money from their gear and work take.

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Nikon 24mm f1.8 G product images (1 of 6)ISO 2001-125 sec at f - 4.0

  • Buy a camera and a lens
  • Learn on it and save up money
  • Upgrade lenses

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Tamron 85mm f1.8 Di VC extra sample images Jenn's portraits (4 of 4)ISO 16001-100 sec at f - 1.8

  • Save money and start to build up more of a portfolio of work using these lenses and with your older camera
  • Buy a flash or off-camera lighting system, and learn more about lighting
  • Start to do small paid gigs
  • Buy second camera body
  • Continue to expand the type of work that you can do
  • Find inspiration
  • Get ideas for more personal projects
  • Do more gigs with the gear that you have
  • Learn to edit and improve the images you create with the current gear you have
  • Do even more personal projects and keep them separate from your commercial work
  • Start strategizing to quit your day job and make photography your full time thing
  • Plan budgeting accordingly
  • Buy a couple of items that you may need to really start your full time transition to photography, but hold it off until you absolutely possibly can’t anymore.
  • Quit day job. Keep doing the jobs you do with the gear that you have.
  • Realize that photography isn’t about the gear even more than you possibly have.
  • Break gear addition and don’t upgrade until you’ve got a genuine reason to.

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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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