Throwback to this editorial, Red Memories, for House of Solo Magazine
Every starter photographer or already established photographers are asking themselves if their equipment is enough or do they need to update their equipment, the question is does gear matter?
I shot this story back in 2017 with my old camera, Canon 60D with kit lens, 18-135mm. Anyone who used to have or use these camera and lens knows these are not the greatest kit for fashion style photos ever. Lens is not sharp enough, besides its really blunt, blurry and my dear old camera, 60D, creating lots of noise over 400 ISO, so I was trying to keep the ISO lower than 400 and the lens is not wider aperture than 3.5. As you know or guess this is ok for day light but in any indoor or night shoots this is a disadvantage.
Was I not using my camera inside? Of course I was using. In a point I realised image quality yes, it is something but creative eye and my point of view or my idea is more important than my equipment, so I decided to use higher ISO taking risk to have noisy photos. To be honest I even liked it in a certain level, it added a texture on the photo which one of the things why I admire film cameras, photos come with the natural texture.
I can ensure you this was not the greatest kit especially for fashion photography, but I would like to show on this post your equipment does not matter about your creativity. Yes, it can be harder, yes you are not able to do some specific things because lack of technical equipments, but this did not stop me to create however I feel, this did not stop me to improve myself. If I can do some great things with this camera and lens, and those images are good enough to be published by some magazines, that I can make you sure that you can do that the same and even more than I do, I did.
Nowadays, we are all discovering facetime photo shooting due to pandemic, those photos are not the greatest quality but lots of photographers or creatives keep trying, creating with their ability whatever equipment they have, and it’s the best feeling ever.
PS: I forgot to mention this earlier and would like to add this on this update, I am adding extra grain to my images to look more natural and the color are blending each other which give me more film camera effect. I suggest you to try as well.
Photographer : Ekin Can Bayrakdar
Stylist : Chloe Bosher
Make up : Cuneyt Ozketen
Hair Stylist : Toni Hristov
Model : Chanel @ Elite London
Assistant Photographer : Ersin Er