Showing off a bit too much...

The other day, I went out with my dad. It’s been ages and it was a great day.

We went to a car show so we thought that bringing a camera was just common sense. The day before, I started packing up my gear and I was thinking: “Oh! I need this, this, this, and that too!”. I ended up with a bag so heavy that it was already starting to be exhausting to carry it after 5min.

I tend to over prepare sometimes and bring way too much stuff. To my defence, it happened so often that I thought I’d need this or that and ended up not bringing those items just to realize after that I should’ve brought them.

Being prepared is great but too much can be overwhelming so I asked myself why I’d do that. It can be impressive to see a photographer with many cameras and giant lenses but at the end of the day, there are two things to consider:

⁃ I was going there to have fun

⁃ I wasn’t getting paid to take pictures or in need of backups

So I was about to carry a bag heavier than my 13 years old, all day long, for what exactly? In my case, I realized it was just to impress others and most likely make my dad proud of me in this twisted reality that I’m making up.

When you really think about it, seeking approval is very common as we don’t want to feel like an outsider to a group or feel rejected. In a way it’s good but in this scenario, I was only feeding my ego at the cost of breaking my back all day.

In the end, I decided to remove a lot out of the bag, especially one heavy lens: with all things considered, I have another lighter one that can work very well in good lighting so it’s a smarter choice since we were outside in a sunny day, even though the bigger lens looks cooler. Each equipment is used for a particular job and works better in certain situations but I wasn’t getting paid for this. Besides, if it was a paid gig, I would’ve brought my son with me to carry the load a bit.

So overall, I was hiding my insecurities under the cover of perceived preparedness. There’s a time for each thing but if it’s causing you to act in a way you don’t really intend to, it’s probably best to rethink it.

After all, we need to constantly monitor our actions because we easily deceive ourselves in thinking that we act graciously at all times when in fact, we know deep down it’s not always the case