The question of crop sensor vs full frame

This morning, while driving to Casco Viejo for a little photo walk, I was listening to the famous photographer Art Wolfe being interviewed in the "Framelines” podcast. I mean, this guy is famous, his photographs are amazing, and from the photos of one of his books I owned “Edge of the Earth, Corner of the Sky", one can just admire the effort and technique to pull such images using 35mm film.

He goes about describing how in the seventies he was one of the few who were embracing 35mm landscape photography, among others like Galen Rowell, and the sort of names you know are today's source for inspiration. Art would explain about accepting the compromise of a lesser quality film, compared to medium format, in order to be able to take longer walks, hike higher mountains in order to take more pictures, carrying much lighter weight. He went about traveling around the world taking pictures for National Geographic, and so many other magazines, he has published a ton of books, teaches workshops, the whole deal, and he chose then to shoot with the limited 35mm film instead of the undoubtedly higher quality medium format film. What the hell are we doing questioning crop sensor to a full frame camera for?

Thanks to this podcast, today I was able to understand at a very basic level that this crop vs full frame dilemma is an illusion, a mental trap, perhaps designed by marketeers to target our insecurities so that we can compensate our lack of great photos with the latest camera gear. I have read and seen numerous videos and articles about this subject, and I could say I understood these differences at an intellectual level, but I have to admit today it sunk deep. I have Art to thank, I have Aaron Sosa to thank, I have a lot of people to thank who tried waking me up from the dream world and finally understand that photography is about the image, not the megapixels, nor about the camera it was shot with, but about the feelings, the imperfections, the lines, the unconscious meaning behind the play of light and shadows on the pictures with shoot.

Crop vs full frame shouldn't be the question, it is distracting. The question should be how can we improve our photography, how can we elevate our images to communicate meaning. The camera matters much less when these are the questions.

The picture from the thumbnail was taken February last year just before hiking that very mountain, Volcan Baru. It was shot handheld with a Fujifilm X-T1 and the kit lens 18-55mm at ISO 6400, f4, at 1/18s.