Saying that I haven't really focused on photography in 2015 is a true assertion. I took almost 20K photos in 2014 and my current pace has me barely crossing 10K in 2015. What changed?

Even though I can claim that I've been distracted by starting and growing a company, I won't.

I just haven't felt inspired to practice photography.

Reflecting for a moment, I found myself in a common photographer's trap of thinking that my camera just isn't good enough — note, I shoot with a FujiFilm X100S. I partly feel this way because I think about the mistakes I've made or the numerous opportunities I've missed when shooting photos. However, I think the biggest impact on my psyche was bumping into other photographers that asked or said things to me such as:

"You're not serious about photography if you're not shooting full-frame." (visiting Big Sur, California)

"Do you really think you can shoot landscapes with a 35mm lens?" (visiting Horseshoe Bend, Arizona)

…and countless others about brands, bodies, lenses, interchangeability, adapters, image stabilization, etc.

Oh, and let me tell you that social media doesn't help. Whenever I see exceptionally high caliber work by my friends and colleagues, I immediately rush to scan EXIF data or visually parse tags to figure out what camera and lens combination they used.

I wish I had a little voice in my head to tell me that a camera doesn't make a photographer take better photos. It would have saved me a lot of time.

I spent a lot of free moments this year researching new cameras. I think my routine pretty much looked like this:

  1. Scan Craigslist for latest deals related to brands/models I was interested in. I also included film cameras (35mm and medium format) — but that's a different story, altogether.
  2. As soon as I found something interesting, I'd rush to sites like Flickr and 500px to see the quality of the camera/lens system.
  3. If I was impressed, I'd start doing price and system comparisons. Sites like Snapsort do a really good job at helping people do apples/apples tests for products like cameras.
I repeated this cycle over and over and over again but it kept breaking down: I'm a minimalist that believes in only owning one instance of a particular product class.

In my case, I should only own one camera. Yet, every time I'd want to sell my X100S, I'd have this weird feeling that I wasn't going to get anything better (at least for my needs as a hobbyist photographer that shoots streets, landscapes and the occasional family portrait).

It took many iterations of this vicious cycle to make me realize that I'm an idiot.

Let me tell you about my camera: a FujiFilm X100S named Fujiyama.

Fujiyama doesn't have a full frame sensor. As someone who's not making a living while taking photos or printing large images, it's just fine.

Fujiyama lacks fancy image stabilization. In fact, if you shake just a little, you'll probably have a blurry photo. My wife absolutely hates using my camera when she's trying to take a portrait of our very adorable niece.

Fujiyama has a fixed 35mm lens and lacks an interchangeable system. As someone who previously owned a Nikon DSLR with various lenses, I'm ok with having the best prime lens permanently mounted and not having to carry pounds of glass up hills or travel through scary neighborhoods.

Fujiyama has an autofocus system that makes snails look like Speed Racer. The AF will hunt and there's a good chance that it might not get it right. I've learned to become a lot more efficient at focusing manually.

Oh, and Fujiyama also has some weird quirks.

Despite all of these downsides, I still love this thing. It's silent, produces amazing colors and has allowed me to become a better photographer by forcing me to learn more about shutter speeds, aperture and ISO.

Fast-forward to this weekend.

My wife and I visited Newport Beach for some sights and shopping. I hadn't done landscape photography in many moons but I had this desire to push through this mental wall of my camera not being good enough.

About an hour before golden hour, my wife and I looked at the sky and knew that we had to catch sunset from the beach. We drove to the coast, hopped out of the car and made our way to the warm sand.

First sight spotted at the beach, moments before golden hour commenced

The sky was just perfect. The weather Gods were on our side.

I destroyed a shoe trying to get this shot from some very sharp rocks.

We even met a few new friends that were also chasing the light.

I had to keep wiping down my camera + lens after every crashing wave.

Despite getting soaked, it felt so good to get this close.

I had a pretty big smile on my face when wave crashed.

With some patience, I was rewarded with some pretty amazing shots.

Yes, I somehow managed to get a crashing wave, a bird and of course the sunset in one shot!

Moments before the sun finally fell before the horizon, I was able to capture the perfect yellow and purple moment we sought after.

So much foam.

I'm not going to lie — I was probably the most impatient person on our drive back north. All I wanted to do was unload my memory cards and view the evening stills.

I wasn't disappointed.

Over the next few hours, I selected and carefully edited some of the photos. Before I knew it, it was incredibly late and I needed to sleep.

I woke up this morning feeling a sense of relief. I wasn't cycling through camera postings and rifling through Flickr search results. Instead, I felt great that I was able to break through this stupid mental wall and just take a some fun photos.

I'm not a professional photographer that's going to leave you with sage wisdom about a photographer and his tools. Life is too short: use whatever makes you feel great.

I don't know the next time I'm going to have a moment like this again.

I do know that I'll be bringing Fujiyama along for the journey.