Every so often I find myself standing in front of the cupboard where I keep my cameras, looking not at the newest body or the lens with the widest aperture, but at the machines that have travelled with me for years. The cameras with worn grips, polished edges and the occasional scratch that reminds me of somewhere I have been rather than something I have owned.

Some people collect cameras.

I seem to collect memories that happen to have cameras attached to them.

Over the years I have been fortunate enough to own equipment that many photographers would have loved to have in their bag. Cameras like the Nikon D3 and the Canon 1D Mark IV represented the very best of their generation. They were built to work, not to decorate shelves. They earned their reputation honestly and I enjoyed every minute I spent using them.

Alongside them sat other cameras that the internet has largely forgotten. A Nikon D1H. A D2Hs. A D300S.

According to modern thinking, these cameras should have been retired years ago. Their sensors are too old. Their screens are too small. They lack the endless list of features that now seem to define whether a camera is considered relevant.

And yet I still reach for them.

Not because I believe they are better than modern cameras.

They are not.

Technology has marched forward at an astonishing pace and anyone pretending otherwise is fooling themselves. Today’s cameras can see in near darkness, focus with uncanny precision and produce files that would have seemed impossible twenty years ago.

That isn’t the point.

The point is that photography has never been a competition between cameras.

Somewhere along the way we confused owning equipment with making photographs. We began reading specifications more often than we studied light. We watched reviews instead of watching people. We convinced ourselves that the next purchase would somehow unlock a level of creativity that had stubbornly remained just beyond our grasp.

I’ve been guilty of it myself.

Most photographers have.

Then one afternoon I picked up an old kit lens that had been lying in the bottom of a camera bag for years.

A humble 18–55mm zoom.

The sort of lens many photographers replace before they’ve really learned what it can do.

I mounted it on an old D300S almost as an afterthought.

Within an hour I found myself smiling.

The photographs looked… good.

Not because the lens possessed some hidden magic. It didn’t suddenly become sharper than lenses costing ten times as much. It hadn’t secretly transformed into a professional zoom while sitting forgotten in the dark.

It simply reminded me of something I had quietly forgotten.

Most of the time the weakest part of the photographic process has never been the equipment.

It’s the photographer’s attention.

Walking with that little lens, I stopped thinking about cameras altogether. I wasn’t wondering whether the corners were sharp enough or whether another stop of aperture would improve the background blur. I found myself doing something much more enjoyable.

I started looking.

Really looking.

Watching people drift through patches of afternoon light. Waiting for expressions that lasted only a fraction of a second. Seeing small relationships between strangers that existed only because I happened to be standing in exactly the right place.

The camera had disappeared.

That’s when photography becomes enjoyable again.

I’ve always believed that the camera should become invisible. Not literally, of course, but mentally. The moment you become preoccupied with the equipment is often the moment you stop paying attention to what is unfolding in front of you.

The best cameras I’ve owned all share one quality.

They get out of the way.

The D2Hs does that beautifully.

So does the D300S.

The old D1H did it before them.

Even the mighty D3, with all its capability, never felt like it was demanding attention. It simply waited patiently for instructions.

Perhaps that’s why I’ve never developed much affection for cameras that try too hard to think on my behalf.

I enjoy making decisions.

Photography has always been, for me, an act of observation rather than automation.

Age has changed the way I photograph.

Not necessarily for the better or worse.

Just differently.

There was a time when I would return from a five-kilometre walk having exposed a couple of hundred frames without giving it much thought. More recently there have been walks where the camera barely left my side. I wondered whether I was losing whatever spark had driven me for so many years.

That thought troubled me more than I cared to admit.

Photography had become part of the rhythm of my life. It wasn’t simply a hobby or a pastime. It was the way I made sense of the world around me. The camera gave me permission to slow down, to notice, to spend time watching rather than rushing.

When that instinct began to fade, I questioned whether it would ever return.

The answer, oddly enough, wasn’t a new camera.

It was an old lens.

Sometimes inspiration arrives in the most unlikely disguise.

The experience reminded me that enthusiasm cannot be bought. It can only be rediscovered.

That rediscovery also forced me to think about why I photograph at all.

Certainly not to impress other photographers.

I’ve reached the stage where opinions about my work matter far less than they once did. I don’t make photographs hoping for admiration or approval. If people enjoy them, I’m grateful. If they don’t, the photographs still served their purpose.

They were never made to satisfy an audience.

They were made because I felt compelled to make them.

Printing has reinforced that belief.

For me, a photograph isn’t complete when it appears on a screen. Screens are temporary. They scroll past with alarming speed before disappearing beneath tomorrow’s distractions.

A print asks something different of the viewer.

It asks them to stop.

To spend a little time.

To notice.

That seems increasingly valuable in a world that encourages us to glance at everything and truly see almost nothing.

Perhaps that is why I continue to enjoy old cameras.

They ask the same thing of me.

Slow down.

Pay attention.

Think before pressing the shutter.

Accept that not every photograph will succeed.

There is an honesty in those limitations.

I don’t pretend that everyone should abandon modern equipment. That would be absurd. Every generation of camera has made certain kinds of photography easier, and there is genuine joy in technological progress.

But there is also joy in realising that the equipment we already own may be capable of far more than we have allowed ourselves to believe.

Some of the most satisfying photographs I’ve made have come from cameras that many people would dismiss without a second glance.

That says more about photography than it does about cameras.

Experience eventually teaches us that memorable photographs are built from curiosity, patience, empathy and timing. None of those qualities can be purchased in a camera shop.

They have to be earned.

Sometimes slowly.

Sometimes painfully.

Always personally.

I still enjoy reading about cameras. I still appreciate beautifully engineered lenses. I’m as susceptible as anyone to admiring well-made tools.

But I no longer confuse those tools with the act of photography itself.

The camera is merely the passport.

The journey is something else entirely.

When I leave home with one of those old Nikons slung over my shoulder, I don’t feel as though I’m carrying obsolete technology.

I feel as though I’m carrying an old friend.

One that has never once suggested that I needed to become someone different in order to make a worthwhile photograph.

It simply asks me to go for a walk.

To keep my eyes open.

To remain curious.

And after all these years, I’ve come to believe that curiosity is the most valuable piece of photographic equipment any of us will ever own.

Cameras will continue to evolve. Sensors will become larger, smaller, faster, sharper and more intelligent. Marketing departments will keep promising that the next generation will change everything.

Perhaps it will.

But I suspect that, years from now, I’ll still find myself reaching into that cupboard, picking up an old camera with a worn grip and a familiar shutter sound, and heading out into the streets.

Not because the camera is extraordinary.

But because the world still is.