12 Mar Reasons To Shop
We’ve all seen those diagrams on social media that look like scientific flow charts but in the end lead you to either espouse some political viewpoint or eat chocolate and drink wine. Every box you enter has a decision you need to make that leads to another box. But eventually they all lead to the politics, chocolate, or wine. The people who do all three at the same time are generally asking for trouble…
No flow chart here, but a series of good reasons why you should shop at a photographic shop…and in particular the photographic shop that sponsors this daily column. If you recognise some of your own behaviour as you read, rest assured we have all been there…and most of us are going back for a second pass.
a. Shop because you need a camera and you don’t have one.
Well, that seems a given, doesn’t it? But consider all the people who passed through the film era without owning a camera – and there were lots of them. They might have had school photos taken, or gone to a local photo studio for family shots…or appear running over the bottom of an upturned dreadnought hull in old newsreels…but they really didn’t have the equipment to capture the best parts of their lives. They missed out, and unfortunately their descendants now miss out too.
Taking family snaps is often seen as the small change of the photographic economy, but every reader who has pictures of their own family knows how precious they are. Getting a camera right now – and jolly well using it – is the best investment in future happiness that you can make.
b. Shop because you have spare money.
The accountant made me say that, but it’s not such a bad idea, really. If you do have spare cash there are any number of things that can soak it up – fashionable clothes, fancy cars, big dinners, and boozing sessions come immediately to mind – but most of these don’t last very long. They certainly don’t last as long as the images you make on modern digital equipment – particularly if you take pictures of cats and post them to Facebook. Those images never vanish.
Business people and government department people also know that if you have spare cash at the wrong time of the year the ATO swoops down and hoovers it up…or your own financial planners remove it from your budget. Better to invest it in a useful photographic department than to see it vanish.
Note: ” Spare money ” is what you have left after rent, food, utilities, health expenses, and books. Do not neglect any of the essentials.
c. Shop to find out things you don’t know.
If you need it, you know, but if you don’t know you need it, you need to know. You know?
There are lots of things that you don’t know how to do – some of them you never want to find out about. But most photographic ideas are good and positive and helpful, if you go about learning to do them. Staff in good photographic shops have those ideas, and the equipment to back them up. Go. Ask. Don’t be shy. You might come away with a beautiful new camera or lens or just a beautiful new idea for an image. Whatever, you are going to be better off for stopping in and browsing and chatting.
d. Shop to cheer yourself up.
The concept of ” retail therapy ” has been laughed to scorn in lots of places – chiefly by people who won’t admit that sometimes they just go through the shops themselves because they are blue. And they also refuse to admit that sometimes buying a new whatever actually does the trick of turning around their mood.
I’m not suggesting that you come in the front door of the shop bawling and throw yourself over the counter, clutching at the staff. Or that you burst in like a bombshell looking for someone to murder. You might feel like this inside, but please keep those insides outside. But do come in if you are just at a loose end and look at the goods for sale. Look at them and imagine what you could do with them. Then drift over to the EFTPOS machine and get your card out. We need to be cheered up occasionally ourselves…
e. Shop to show off.
Ooh, we’re getting close to the bone here…I am not going to suggest that people sometimes buy expensive goods just to make their colleagues in camera clubs jealous – or that they do it to put one up on the brother-in-law – or that they do it to show the world that they have more money than sense. I’m not going to suggest that at all.
I’m not sure if it is a dark side of human nature we are looking at here, or whether it is all just a jolly game. Whichever – if you get something expensive just to swank it over the family, at least have the decency to tell them you got it from us. With a bit of luck they will become determined to beat you at your own game and come down to the shop and buy the next model up…
Are you all shopped out for the day? Tune in tomorrow and I’ll tell you some more good reasons. And a couple of reasons why not to shop…
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