There’s a popular tendency to ask a professional photographer about equipment. While it is much more challenging to find out the image-maker’s motivation, cultural perspective, conceptual framework and philosophical cultivation, the camera does matter.
As a photojournalist, I need to be on top of fast-changing and varied situations on assignment, from battling Arctic snow and getting soaked in sea spray on geographic expeditions to running with a rioting crowd to capturing exquisite nightlife photos under extreme low-light conditions. There’s no escaping, only a high-end digital SLR would do.
I chose Canon over Nikon, simply because it is more widely available, and therefore I can easier get my equipment repaired or borrow lenses at a pinch. I use a couple of 5D Mark III and own cases full of lenses, from ultra-wide to telephoto zooms, fixed prime lenses such as the 50/1.2, macros…
On documentary trips I travel light and love my Sony RX100, recently even publishing a night cityscape panorama in Geo magazine shot with this pocket-sized point-and-shoot. Some of the best photographers use iPhones and shot famous war pictures, but I don’t see the need for being so incognito when i do street photography in London, Moscow or Shanghai.
Collecting dust on my shelves are legendary Leica and Voigtlander rangefinders, which in the early days of my career trained me to work intuitively and compose pictures in my mind and rather than through the lens.
On bigger campaigns, such as commercial shoots, I bring a whole bunch of flashes and sometimes hire studio lights and assistants.
There’s no ultimate camera. The answer depends on the desired result and the photography genre: fine art, portraiture, editorial, travel, candid, urbanx`, advertising, architecture. Ever heard of “boudoir photography”?