A lot of photographers love to proclaim that gear doesn’t matter, but of course, the best way to test that is to give a good photographer a terrible camera. That’s just what happens in this great video, and it’s an excellent lesson on subject interaction.

Coming to you from DigitalRev TV, this interesting video follows Feng Yu, a Chinese portrait photographer, as she shoots a variety of scenarios using a toy camera. I always enjoy these challenges, as the cameras are so bad that it’s literally impossible to create technically top-notch images, and so, the photographer always has to rely on some other aspect of image-making to create compelling, interesting pictures. In the case of Feng Yu, her subject interaction is astoundingly good. She has a real skill for getting her subjects to let their guard down and for capturing organic moments of genuine expression and interaction. We all know that particularly in portrait photography, subject interaction is paramount to creating images that connect and resonate with the viewer; most portrait photographers will readily tell you that their job is way more psychology than it is photography. I really recommend watching the entire episode; it’s very enlightening.