How To Turn A Gadget Into A Tool
Boulevard du Temple, taken by Daguerre in late 1838 or early 1839 in Paris, was the first photograph of a person. The image shows a busy street, but because exposure time was over ten minutes, the traffic was moving too much to appear. The exception is the man at the bottom left, who stood still getting his boots polished long enough to show. (click photo to enlarge)
Gadgets are cool. Some tools are cool too. I like owning beautiful and useful tools and gadgets. But I also think that tools are overrated. The quality of your creation is only partially dependent on your tools.
Sure, if you depend on your tools it is nice to have good quality stuff.
But a very expensive camera won’t make you a great photographer.
A new computer won’t make you a better writer.
Expensive drawing tools won’t make you a better painter.
A great new drill won’t make you better at fixing your house.
The important thing is to make your work the focus of your attention and to forget the tool. If you are drooling over your new camera you will likely miss what is happening in front of you. If you are playing with your new Mac software you will never write that bestseller.
The best way to turn a gadget into a tool is to start using it, heavily.
My friends are often shocked at how fast my gadgets turn old. They will be scratched, broken and dented within days. The reason this happens is that I try to turn the gadget into a tool. I don’t drool over a hammer, my camera or my MacBook Pro anymore. I do enjoy its design and beauty and try not to bruise it for a while but then I’m almost relieved when I make the first scratch somewhere. That will most likely start the painful transition from Gadget to Tool.
The reason for this story is that today I bought a Leica. Right now it is a beautiful gadget. It smells great, has beautiful packaging and has all these little accessories that are just so cool. I will most likely be unable to make even one photo for days because I’m just so intimidated by the whole legacy of Leica cameras. I have been staring through photography store windows since I first started making photos and often imagined having one.
Now I have one.
But the camera isn’t, or shouldn’t be, important. It is what my mind will be able to do with it. That is also the reason I’m not showing a photo of my camera in this post or am telling you about all the technical details.
The camera is just a tool.
It is not important.
Filed under Design, Gadget, Inspiration, Money, Personal |
3 Responses to “How To Turn A Gadget Into A Tool”
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And that is the difference between a painter and an artist. Between a musician and an artist. Between a film director and an artist. Between a copywriter and an artist. Between a writer and an artist. Between a photographer and an artist.
The first is always the technician and deals in paint, guitars, cameras, words, lenses etc.
But the artist deals in ideas. And so the artist can improvise and operate in any medium: art, music, film, advertising, literature, photography. That is because the artist exists not within the medium but always above the medium.
Some artists are also great technicians while some artists are not. But artists will always succeed regardless of technical ability. Artists succeed on the quality of their ideas.
congratulations on your new camera!
now get some black duct tape and tape off those logos! ^_^
about stuff becoming a tool, I normally refer to it as when stuff truly becomes mine. Stuff I just bought, either being new or second hand, isn’t mine from the start. It’s in my possession, but it only becomes mine for real after I opened it up and/or customized it and/or had a moment or two where I thought I broke it and in case of second hand gear, when I totally cleaned it inside out. In other words, I need to have a track record with my gear before it really is mine. ;-)
yes