Rockwell is obviously bored with people that feel they can buy talent. I see it all the time in the game of golf. People will spend 6-8 hundred dollars on a driver to hit the ball futher. If instead they would spend that money on lessons and practice to groove a good solid swing, they would hit it further and also be able to take full advantage of the newest technology. Buying the best equipment without background has it's limits. You can have the finest Hasselblad, but if you don't know enough to get out of your car and walk the hundred yards it takes to get the shot, or you're just too lazy to learn how to use your camera and go the extra distance, you just won't get the great shot. A pro camera in the hands of someone that doesn't use it a lot will not get you a good shot, you're better off with a point and shoot. Snap shots are snap shots, the equipment doesn't change that, it just make them look better(if you can succeed in getting an image).

He is dead wrong about equipment, great equipment does make a huge difference when one knows what to do with it. It opens up many directions a person with an "eye" can take to get the shot they see in their head. I now shoot knowing how I can manipulate it in Photoshop, it is a technique that has come about because of better equipment. When I see a great sky that I could use later in another shot that could be made much better by including it, I shoot it and put it in a library of sky shots. A so called purist would have a problem with that, I don't care, the final image is what is important to me and I don't want to waste time waiting on the perfect sky or for some guy in Bermuda shorts to get out of the shot. As romantic as it sounds to say that you returned to the same spot year after year to get that one shot, in todays world it seems to be a waste of time.

I once saw a show on Thomas Mangelsen, known for his great Polar Bear shots. He claimed he shot 10,000 images for every one he used for a commercial print, Is he a lousy photographer that makes up for it by shooting enough to where he gets at least one good one or is he just that demanding of his work that he realizes that truly great shots are few and far between.

If you look at Ansel Adams' photographs printed directly from the negative you would be amazed at the difference from what he ended up with after hours or days in the darkroom. Ansel would have gone nuts over photoshop. He would have also loved the photography equipment available today. He was obviously worried more about the final image than what it took to get it.

Purist don't like change, they have their own idea and definition of how things sould be, they miss out on a lot of wonderful things and a lot of great images.

I'm sure I jumped around a lot in this post but I don't have enough time to spend composing .....gotta go.