i am sure many people have his view of photography. even more people have the idea that better camera gives you better photography. i want to ask these people to try one thing, just go to the camera stores, tell the clerk to give you a nikon d5000 and a d700 and start shooting inside the store. take those picture home and ask someone to blind the photos for you so that you dont know which ones are from which camera. now try to see if you can correctly identify the right photos from the right camera. i bet you can only have 50% chance getting it right, if not worse.
there is even an easier way to do this, just look at this forum and try to tell whether the photos from this forum is from a cheap $700 d5000 or a $2500 5d mark II, you will see that many great photos are from a cheap camera and of course, so so photos from an expensive one. that is the best evidence to the point that camera is not the determining factor to the photo, it is the artistic side, which is the composition, and even more, your ideas and feelings behind the photos.
you can only get the best out of your camera if you know it well enough, but you can only take the best photography if you learn the artistic side of photography. like what Bruce Barnbaum said in his book "art of photography"
there are three questions most people ask him about his photos, if i remember it right:
1. what camera/equipment he use
2. where was this place
3. what was in the photo
which totally missed the most important points of photography, the composition used in the photography, and most importantly, what impression, moods, and feelings the photographer is trying to convey to its viewers.
i am not saying that you have to always produce "great art". that will be the same as to say that you should not draw/paint because you are not a good painter. after all, if you dont learn and try to practice, you won't even have the chance of at least getting better at it. and that is why we have art classes in school. other than only a very few in this world, most artists dont born to be one without any practice and learning to do art.
it is a total ignorance to say that painting/photography is not art just because someone doesnt understand it.
