This photo marks the point where I fell in love with photography. It was in 2010 during a stage rehearsal for the Young Choreographer’s evening in Karlsruhe, the ballet was Reginaldo Oliveira’s first choreography with the title: “Attempt”.

I took it with a Nikon D5000 and some crappy 3rd party lens. It’s a bit blurry. There’s a lot of noise in the image. But the image projects a feeling. An image only fails if it says nothing. Who cares what camera you used? Do you care what pots and pans a chef used to make you that delicious dinner? I highly doubt that even the best pixel peepers (someone who zooms in so far they can make out the atoms holding a photo together) could tell you which camera was used to create an image. So many times people have asked me what camera I use. As if it really matters. There is no magic camera. Of course, I always strive to for the highest technical quality in my images, using the best gear available to me, but the emotion the image provokes and/or the story it tells, is by far more important to me.

Why do so many people add filters or film grain to their images? Because without them the images look too perfect. The imperfection is what makes an image interesting. Perfect is boring. Life is far from perfect. Life is interesting. So many people get plastic surgery and Botox. They all end up looking the same.

Many people want overly-photoshopped images. One day they'll look back and think: “what did I really look like back then?”. That is, if they ever look at the images again. Usually the photos just end up disappearing on their computer or phone’s hard drive after their 0,000058 seconds of fame on social media.

Whenever a new camera or lens is announced, photographers increase their mortgages and start selling their kidneys to be the first to buy it. In today’s culture people think that buying the latest and the greatest is the solution to all their problems. Today’s cameras are a 1000 times more advanced than 10 years ago, they can do everything and more than what you’ll ever need as a photographer. People took amazing photos 90 years ago. What cameras did they use?

Understanding the technicalities of photography will surely give you more control over your images. A better camera can surely help you achieve the image you are after. But don’t listen to someone who says that real photographers only take photos with “real cameras” set to Manual mode. Did you take a photo of your cat with your Cheap Chinese Mobile Phone, that is “badly lit”, but you just love it? Then print it out and frame it. You’re a photographer.