Size Matters: Feeling Inadequate Based on the Tiny Canon in my Pocket

by Aaron Hockley on August 25, 2010

They say it’s not the size of your equipment… but maybe it is.

Panasonic G2, Canon 5D2, Canon S90 FrontLast weekend I went to a conference. As an experiment I left my laptop and DSLR(s) at home, taking my iPad and Canon S90 instead. I wanted to see how well I could function with the lighter gear. Technically, things went okay, but that’s not what I want to talk about here.

My tiny Canon made it awkward.

It wasn’t awkward from a technical standpoint. I was able to capture most of the shots I wanted. It was awkward socially.

Prior to the conference, I only knew a few others amongst the 300 attendees. While there, I introduced myself to many more. At some point, I noted that I was a photographer… and it felt wrong.

Why? I don’t know. I’m pretty sure that a lot of folks wondered why a pro photographer wasn’t carrying around a DSLR… why was this man who claimed to know all about creating pictures using a tiny pocketable point and shoot without interchangeable lenses. For better or for worse, I didn’t feel confident representing myself as a pro photographer without my big camera, especially when I was surrounded by a bunch of other amateurs packing DSLRs of various sizes.

Is it a legit concern? Should I have brought my DSLR if only for the size factor? I’m curious if this is simply a mental thing that’s absurd for me to feel, or whether there’s a real professional and perception issue that if I want to be taken seriously as a photographer (even when I’m not actually performing photo duties) that I need to always pack the big body/glass.

Was I being judged by the size of my small Canon in my pocket, or was it all in my head? What do you think?

Photo by saeba, used under Creative Commons licensing

Tagged as: canon s90, dslr, events, gnomedex, professionalism, psychology

  • http://twitter.com/drumminlogan Logan Thompson

    I’d say don’t worry about it. Let your photos speak for themselves. Just because someone has a nice camera doesn’t make them a good photographer. I got my first dslr this year, and I am sure most of the pictures you take with your s90 are better then mine since you know what you’re doing.

  • http://twitter.com/karmagroovy Russ

    I think it depends on whether you were representing yourself as a “Professional Photographer” and are looking at the people you came in contact with as potential clients. If that was the case, then definitely bringing the big body would have kept people from wondering. In business, perception is almost everything. Even though an S90 is an extremely capable photographic tool, it’s hard not looking like just another tourist when you’ve got a dinky pocket camera in your hand.

  • Charles B.

    It’s a legit concern, in my opinion. As my boss is saying to me often, “Perception is reality.”

  • http://twitter.com/onephotonerd David Martschinske

    I showed up to an engagement shoot with my iPhone as a joke and said that we’d be doing it all on my phone. It was good for a laugh or two. It is totalllly important to bring out the big guns esp. in front of clients. Even if you know the difference, they often don’t. I have my girlfriend/assistant hold the biggest lens and she always gets comments like, “such a big lens for such a small little girl”. It’s kind of humorous to us both.

    Anyways, this was a much cleaner and innuendo-free response compared to the one I had crafted earlier that never made it through…

    David

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