I opened my car trunk the other day in front of a coworker and he exclaimed “You’ve got cam­eras on top of cameras!”

Got me think­ing about why I have all this equip­ment. And I do feel like I have jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for all the gear, in this sense of a slid­ing scale for it that goes from money-making to art-making. The dig­i­tal stuff is way on the money-making end — por­trait shoots, wed­dings, etc. Totally reward­ing and def­i­nitely the lucra­tive work. On the other end is the 6x7, this mon­ster of a cam­era I’m just learn­ing to uti­lize. Beau­ti­ful work is com­ing from it, but very pos­si­bly will never recoup its cost in sales of pieces from it. And the film 35mm set falls some­where in between.

Could I do all my work with one set of equip­ment? I don’t think so. Best chance would be with dig­i­tal, but that doesn’t seem like very much fun. Thus, I see a need for each set. So in a cir­cu­lar way, I feel jus­ti­fied in all the gear.

But what to do with all of it? I’m reach­ing a slow point in the event sea­son — no gigs booked after early Novem­ber until Feb­ru­ary or so. Time to see if I can clear out any equip­ment — I know I want to sell my 6x45 set. Redun­dant for sure with the 6x7 and my GA645. I’m look­ing for­ward to the time of reflec­tion, time for exam­i­na­tion of the year’s work.