What makes a good photographer?

   There you go showing off your new Nikon D3x with a new $10,000 ultra-sharp lens, coupled with your $500 ultra-light tripod. You take a dozen pictures only to find out that your next door neighbor sold more of his photos than you while he only uses his $67 point and shoot camera that he got from a yard sale.

   You wonder how and why. Does he use black magic? Does he just copy them from some web source? Does he force people to buy them? To feed your curiosity, you go to his exhibit, which at this time, is his small garage which is nothing when compared to your living room size gallery. You go in and the first thing you see is his wooden tripod. You can see that it is made of smooth wood, with some duct tape at the points to prevent slip and a D-I-Y mount,way too uncomparable to your $500 tripod. You look to your right and you see his camera hanging on the wall, with its cheaply built strap. You look to the left, you see his bike, some small print pictures and a mini umbrella designed to mount on top of his camera to prevent it from getting wet.

  Suddenly, something caught your eye. Something that you have never seen before. It made you stare at it some time. You feel blood rush through your veins and your heart pumps faster than it usually does. You close your eyes for 5 seconds just to make sure that its real then "snap"., your neighbor just snapped you out of what seemed to be and endless void of staring. What did you see? It was his photographs. The composition, the exposure, the subjects all blended perfectly together to form an image which makes you want to be in it.

   This story of course, is an exaggeration. I hope I didn't drag you too deep. The main point of this story is that having the best gear in the world doesn't make you the best photographer. Having the right knowledge and technique is what counts more. To be a good photographer, to be even called one, you have to understand the some basic concepts in photography; understanding exposure perhaps, knowing the right use of light and creative compositions.

   The difference between the two characters here is that the other one has some of the best gear in the world and shoots with it without considering the composition of the shot, angle and exposure. The other character however, inspite of lacking the better gear, used his basic knowledge and creative composition to capture the image that would certainly please anyone's taste. Learning the techniques in photography isn't that hard. When you get a good understanding of the basics, you can further experiment more on the gear that you have before deciding to buy the better gear. One common mistake that most photographers make is that they start in a reverse order, that is; Gear - Experiment - Basic, which should be the other way around.

   So when you try think about it, are you the guy who has $20,000 worth of gear but getting not so much feedback for your images? Or are you the guy who has that technique, backed by the knowledge to capture that great shot? That is for you to find out.