Photographers love gear, and with so many excellent toys out there, it can be easy to get lost in GAS (gear acquisition syndrome).  But in art, it’s not about the gear but the final product.  Sometimes the most humble of tools gets us to the image.

This is one of my most recent images from the Mirage series of art nudes.  I’ve been exploring ways to bring more into the background of the reflections and this evening we had the windows to the studio open as a backdrop.  The pattern in the background is the sunset over Manchester.  But back to the main topic of gear.  This image was made with a very high tech camera (Nikon d800e) and a very simple lens.  Just for kicks, I put a plastic Holga lens on the camera, just to see what would happen.  The results were pretty cool!  The image is soft and vignetted- very different from what I normally get.  It lends something to the feel of the image- the soft focus, the sunset and the angled light all combine in an end of day moment.  Could I have done this in Photoshop?  Probably.  But I doubt that I would have thought to do so without the experimentation with that cheap plastic lens.