Here's a picture of the Jefferson Memorial right after sunrise. I had the inspiration to drive downtown very early Sunday morning to check things out - sunrise is definitely the time to go to get pictures of memorials without people. On the other hand, you do end up having to coordinate with the other photographers who have the same idea - some of the gear I saw this weekend was impressive, I saw one medium format camera with a digital back; let's see, a digital back for a medium format camera would put someone back around $15,000 or so, depending on the back. The particular one I saw was a Phase 1 attached to a Hasselblad H1, in which case I would estimate the total cost to be somewhere around the $25,000 - $30,000 mark, more than my car. I was curious and had to take a closer look - I asked "is that an H1?", to which my non-response was something along the line of "go away you amateurish fool". I mean, I asked a question and the guy didn't even look at me. The whole encounter reminded me of a weekend stroll to the FDR Memorial last year where I saw a guy carrying a Nikon D2X with a 200-400mm VR lens, major photographic bling bling. I have to admit I was a bit intimidated holding my ancient F4S with a very beat up 80-200mm lens shooting leftover film (I also had my trusty D70 with it's equally as trusty kit lens, the 18-70mm DX, which I thought was expensive). As I was getting ready to leave, he pulled ANOTHER D2X out of his backpack, this one with a f2.8 17-35mm lens attached to it. WOW! This guy easily flashed about $17,000 in Nikon equipment in the brief two minutes we sat there resting, as if to say "I'm the alpha Nikon dude here, don't mess with me, you photographic weakling". Yeah sure, I know that equipment doesn't make the photographer, but I was blown away at the fact that this dude just casually whipped out the most expensive in Nikon equipment like it wasn't a big deal at all. Is our area good for high paying jobs or what? Now that's some serious equipment.
