Lenvy (Lens Envy)

It’s a real thing, I swear. I wander around with my nice, but not very fancy, camera in hand on a regular basis looking longingly at other people’s giant shiny lenses. That is not a euphemism for something indecent by the way. I’m pretty sure most of these people aren’t even professionals, unless I’m at an event, in which case I assume that everyone is laughing at my paltry excuse for a camera and talking in their ‘Award Winning Photographers’ support groups, sneering at the rest of us. Really all they are doing is chatting with their mates wondering where to go for dinner.

You can only begin to imagine the levels of shame and lens envy I carry around at Electric Picnic where every year I make the conscious (and wise I feel) decision not to bring my SLR for fear of losing it to the wilds of Laois – obviously in a non-embarrassing, sober manner – replacing it with my occasionally-refusing-to-focus Canon Powershot, which has been both marinated in Guinness and dropped from on high on numerous occasions and yet usually works just fine.

My lens envy has been so overwhelming at times that I have found myself coming to from a daze after wandering in the totally wrong direction after some unsuspecting photographer distracted by his or her big apparatus…I could have wandered into oncoming traffic.

I was, for a very long time, intimidated by people with these giant lenses until I discovered that a) they are bloody heavy and b) due to my advanced age they hurt my old shoulders. Let’s just say I’m happy with what I’ve got…for now.