Hi Rob,
Cameras can make a big difference to the resulting picture. Didn't you know that?
For example, if you don't have a camera, you can't take a photograph at all, so no resulting picture, zilch, nada, unless you take up painting of course.
Dear me, Ray that’s so reactionary!
You are missing the entire point of photography, which is fundamentally nothing more than vehicle to a sublime emotional experience. Or, you may just be signalling the early stages of photographic competence, and so I shan’t offer any seriously critical comment here, other than to let you know that the best, for you, is yet to come.
Snapping’s like fishing (obviously) and you will one day discover that the very best snaps are the ones that you simply didn’t make for the fundamental reason that you were so wrapped in the moment (even, sometimes, decisively so) that the distraction of finger on button would have absolutely removed the thin, evanescent patina of magic, that quasi-erotic sense of oneness with the creation before your eyes, that
not making the shot actually allowed you to preserve within the eternity of your inner consciousness.
Similar to fishing, as I said, but with the advantage that you never, ever have to stand there, legs apart and arms stretched out in undignified boastful measure.
Less is sometimes more, but
nothing is perfection. As I’m sure you now agree.
Don‘t become disheartened, though, there’s time enough yet.
So, Ray, I find myself having to suggest that your thoughful contention about the relative values of having or
not having a camera to hand at any one moment of possible photographic moment doesn’t, in fact, hold at all: the better experiences, those rare (very) happenings that transcend the mundane are all best experienced without mecha-electro distractions in hand. Just like the fish, as I said when I came in.
Someone remarked somewhere else about the strange habits of some LuLa members; you know, like not sticking to finely defined lines of demarcation (lines of demarcation are usually finely defined) such as lenses only to be mentioned within the context of a lens thread, cameras only in camera threads, and so forth. I can’t say that I have ever found this rule to have been violated within the illuminated (and illuminating) pages of this fine journal, have you? As for allegations of personal attack! Goodness me, perish the thought that such ungentlemanly behaviour would be tollerated by the establishment, the writing hierarchy of this club for seniors!
Bless you, my son; the planets will soon align, Kodachrome will return.
Rob C