Well... maybe not..
As a Photographic Artist... you need to have cameras and lenses. They go with the territory. Can't make pictures without 'em.
Some years ago, I realized that my Photographic Heroes... Cartier-Bresson, Eisenstadt, Eppridge, Haas, et. al, used what... by today's standards... would appear to be extraordinarily primitive equipment.
Leicas and Rolleis... with no meters, no motors, no autofocus... view cameras, slow film, Gawd-Awful heavy (and weak) strobe equipment... and, still, any picture by Fritz Goro or David Douglas Duncan will Beat The Crap out of a lot of photos that are today produced with autofocus/motor drive/digital capture/3200 speed film/17~35mm zooms.
My all-time favorite Sports Photographer is The Boston Globe's Frank O'Brien. Back when he was on the night shift, in the mid 70's, he would DAILY produce the BEST photos of The Boston Celtics, The Boston Bruins, and The Boston Red Sox with thumb-wind Nikons, 300mm f/4.5 and 105 f/2.5 lenses, and Tri-X film... pushed to E.I.s of 1600/2000/3200... in a Boston Garden that had 1/8th the light that the new Boston Garden is lit by, today.
Clearly... it's the photographer, not the gear. Further... I have come to believe that all the Good Stuff that you can find in an EOS-1V works against the photographer, when the time comes to go One Step Ahead of the picture that just presents itself.
The photographers that I idolized KNEW what they wanted in a picture... and worked to get it. They didn't have all the Auto Goodies to fall back on. They KNEW how to get flash fill at 1/50th of a second, with a #25 blue flashbulb... which doesn't have a button on the back to "dial down 1/3rd of a stop...".
Sooooo... I own a lot of modern gear, for when I need it (autofocus Nikons, fast zooms, etc.)... but it's interesting how often that I DON'T need it, and can use some of my Really Old Stuff.
For example... this recent photo of a couple of nice people who collect art was made with a thumb-wind, plain-prismed Nikon F2... with a 35mm f/2 lens, at around f/8 and 1/60th of a second, on a 100 speed 'chrome film. All of the lights used were purchased second-or-third hand, in inoperable condition, and I either rebuilt them myself, or had them rebuilt by a strobe repairman. In fact... the camera was assembled from the best parts of a couple of F2's... each of which was purchased inexpensively.
To the left of the camera, on a stand, was a 200 watt Braun 800 series battery strobe, with a Lumedyne head adapted to it, and the reflector removed (bare tube). To the right of the camera, was an old Norman 200B battery strobe, shooting through a 24" umbrella. To the right, and across the room, was a 200 watt Lumedyne battery strobe, bouncing off the ceiling, to illuminate the wall with the paintings on it.
This photo did not require 45-point autofocusing. It did not require matrix metering. It did not require nine-frames-per-second. It did not require TTL flash metering. It ONLY required a camera that would move film through, mount a lens that could be focused manually, and would synchronize to the flashes.
This photo, of two guys who developed software that rates websites for handicapped accessability, was made with a Leica M3, and a 21mm f/4 Super Angulon lens... both purchased used, and inexpensively... on an old Tiltall tripod. The film was an 800 speed color negative film, and the exposure was 1/15th of a second at f/5.6... to capture both the room light and the monitor onto the negative. Scanning from negative film eliminated the green, from flourescent lighting, that would have dominated a 'chrome. This is as Low Tech as it's possible to get... but, the picture doesn't care.
Walter Hoey, Jody Scioletti, and Bob Crosby, all great photographers from the North Shore of Boston, photographed with the Yashica-Mat, pictured above... on a 400-speed B&W film, with a little wink flash from a Nikon SB-16... 1/125th of a second at f/8.
It's about the pictures... not the gear. It's about how you use the gear... not about how much stuff that the gear can do for you...