The purchase of expensive equipment seems to be determined more often by consumer habits leading to the purchase of only quality products than by a qualitative transformation of the photographic intention. In short, the sophistication of the available means comes to photography from outside; rather than resulting from the appearance of new requirements produced by the practice of photography itself, it expresses a concern to conform to the broad group norm. The aesthetic quality, not to mention the technique, of the picture produced and the modality of the practice, cannot be deduced from the qualities of the camera, its possibilities or limitations, and the routine and stereotyped work produced by most photographers cannot be explained by the limitations imposed on them by an unsophisticated camera or their own technical incompetence; instead, it is the photographic intention itself which, by remaining subordinate to traditional functions, excludes the very idea of fully exploiting all the camera’s possibilities, and which defines its own limits within the field of technical possibilities.

Pierre Bourdieu, Photography: A Middle-Brow Art (via thepovertyoftheory)