The actual definition of penis envy seems to be subjective for the most part. A recent experience left me wondering if this "condition" manifests itself in other ways? Transpose "penis rivalry" to a hobby, and that seems to be true.
To set the scene: I have been taking photos since I was 8 years old, barely old enough to understand how photography worked. I learned on an old 126 Kodak instamatic that my dad managed to beg from a junk store. From then on, I learned all I could about photography, I practiced it whenever my budget would allow, and once in a blue moon, I upgraded my equipment. To begin with, upgrading for me meant "increasing features" rather than any improvement in quality. Cue in my first autofocus compact camera, which had a focus success rate of about 1 in 20 pictures. I learned the hard and expensive way, how to get good results with fewer bells and whistles.
Getting a job, while still living at home, unleashed a ten year camera spending spree. I bought just about every item of "professional" equipment I could afford, and some that I could not. Apart from faster lenses, heavier cameras and some degree of ruggedness, I never noticed any big advantage; two things seemed to make a good image; a good lens and a photographer composing the image well, using the full capabilities of the camera to get the picture right first time. Until about 2002, I had no experience of digital, and no particular desire to.
Emgigrating and nearly going bankrupt in the process meant I had to reduce my hobby expenditure drastically. That included photography. I had to plump for a "consumer" camera when my budget finally increased enough. Consumer it may be, but it took excellent pictures. I already had the photographic knowledge to quickly find the limitations. What was great, was coming on sites such as NN and discovering that people were making beautiful images with things as simple as a tablet or smartphone, sometimes even just a compact camera.
Until last weekend, I had believed that camera snobs were a dead or at least atrophied breed; with the digital revolution and the miniaturisation associated with it, there was now no need for a lens ten times longer than a penis and several times heavier. I tried out a hobby to which I'm almost completely new, and discovered that tackle tarts are unfortunately alive and well. While I was shooting with my modest 250mm consumer zoom lens (which was limited by a fence and the heat haze on the airport in any case!) two guys turned up, equipped with huge white Canon L lenses and camera bodies built to match. Whenever a plane took off, they pointed their behemoths at it, and fired away at least 10 frames per second, to judge by the sounds from their mirrors. That in itself was not very troubling, but when they started to take the piss out of the guy next to me, who was using a small compact with a modest lens, and my own camera, it brought up some bad taste in my mouth.
My point is, despite popular myth, size is not everything, especially if you don't know how to use it. Not only this, but being used to your equipment, practising constantly and "making do" is always more rewarding than trying to outdo someone with something that can be purchased. I was reminded of how petty people can be when it comes to material things. The irony of the whole situation is that I could easily hire expensive equipment, just as almost any adult can rent a supercar, and go pose with it for the day. But renting a supercar does not enable you to become a F1 driver, nor does owning the most expensive lens and camera in a 10km radius make you a photographer... or to capture images like the one I did, which the big-lens-sparrow-muscled guys missed
