How to Fetishize a Camera 

Excerpt from the memoirs of F. Gatsby Farnsworth

When you take a new camera out of the box for the first time, you are overwhelmed. 

First there’s  the way it smells. Then the way it looks. But the intoxicating moment comes when for first time you hold  it in your hands. 

Ah, the way it feels! This is where it was meant to be. 

You can read a million snooty reviews that dissect every aspect of this new model. But they never talk about how it really feels, do they?

How heavy it is. How easy it will be to reach the back-button focus control.  Blah, blah, blah!

They obsess over trivialities while ignoring the only thing that counts. How it feels. How you feel while holding it.

Yes, I am a camera fetishist. 

And I’ve been this way since I was 17. That makes a member of the most misunderstood minority. 

The non-fetishing majority have countless wisecracks to put us down.  We’re the perverts who prefer the black stilettos of the beautiful woman to the woman herself. 

I don’t mind the derision. If they could feel the way I do, they would be looking out the window waiting for the Amazon driver to drop off the next delightful piece of photo gear. 

When I became a photographer I would think of all the great images I would make. Now I don’t care about them at all. 

My passion lies in making them—with the gear in my hands. And as I get more gear and longer lenses, the exhilaration overcomes me. For a few moments at least I can escape this drab world and dwell in ecstasy. 

I’ll spend the afternoon reading more reviews on which lens is best for street photography. There’s a new 35mm, f/1.4 coming out next week that sounds exciting…

It’s not easy for me to understand how these people think even though I’ve met plenty of them. My assistants, students, clients feel this way about photography. Everyday I come across a bunch of photo related articles on Flipboard and various photo blogs. Nearly all of them take this approach for granted.

The attitude is totally pervasive, so a photo enthusiast could be forgiven for falling into the trap. Yet it only takes a little consideration to realize this approach is wrong. And in future articles I’m going to point the way out of the trap. One way I’ll do this is by showing the work of interesting photographers and showing how they do it.

Anyone interested in photography as a career or hobby is encouraged to join us.