Decluttering the tollbox

Consciously limiting the set of tools used in a given creative project is an effective way of focussing on the most important message. Artists often choose to limit their palette of colours for a particular painting, or even de-emphasize the role of either form or colour, as the Impressionists or the Cubists did, for example. Likewise in photography, it might be beneficial to work around the limitations of your gear instead of lugging around an enormous set of lenses and camera bodies.

I have been often referring to Cal Newport’s “Deep Work” lately, and he has an important point on using only a limited set of tools. There is a cost associated with adopting and using a new tool in your typical workflow. There are tangible resources, that are required to learn the new tool or technique, to keep it sharp (figuratively speaking), and to make decisions regarding whether using this tool would add to or detract from the process and the product. In other words, adopting and using a particular piece of gear or a technique has both advantages and disadvantages. A conventional craftsman would not adopt a new tool, unless it offers a net improvement of the process.

There is another benefit of limiting our toolset. If we don’t have many tools that have an overlapping set of capabilities, we learn to use the tools that we do have more effectively, i.e. we utilize them fully. This increases the efficiency, or return on investment, of these tools.

I find this happening with my use of iPhone camera apps. I have three of them – the built-in Camera, the Camera+ and the ProCamera. They are slightly different in terms of functions, and each is slightly better than the others at a particular aspect of the workflow. For example, I find the native Camera to be the best in terms of the synchronizing with the Photos app, instant sharing and shooting panoramas. The Camera+ is the most convenient for shooting in general – using pick focus and pick exposure, etc. (although lately it has been giving annoying delays and lag on my iPhone 6 Plus… Hm-m-m, this might be a good excuse reason to buy a faster phone…) The ProCamera is most convenient for shooting video. Having said this, the native Camera app is reasonably good overall, and not having to make decision on which app to use might make a difference between capturing a moment in time or missing it.