How Much Gear Is Enough Gear?

Clicking on my usual web destinations today led me to some enviable images of photographer Vincent Laforet's gear.

Laforet headed off to the Olympics on behalf of Newsweek but, before leaving, he snapped some pics of the camera equipment he'd be taking along to Beijing. It isn't the images themselves that I envy, it's the freaking gear! Holy crap! Now I feel like a pauper-azzi!

I get why Laforet believes he needs so many cameras and lenses and accessories: He'll be photographing a wide range of Olympic events and he wants to be prepared for just about anything and everything. But still, that's a lotta gear!!! And I want it. I want it all! I even want the stuff I'd probably never use.

When I go to work, I carry two camera bodies (my 5D and a 20D for a backup) and two or three lenses. I also pack a few speedlites, a meter, some Ebay transmitters and receivers, two or three monolights, stands, various modifiers, a couple of reflectors, and some expendables like tape, gels, etc. That's enough to make me feel like a pack-mule when I show up at a location. But Laforet, heading off to Beijing, makes me feel like I go to work naked. Well, metaphorically naked from an equipment point-of-view.

The candid triptych at the top is Devin showing off her bubble-gum blowing skills. It has nothing to do with today's post unless some clever, naked-chick-pic, art critic can find symbolic, artistic, meaning in it. But if not, who cares?