The short answer is yes, the long, it depends...
What I mean is that it depends on the type of photography that you do, your experience and your expectations.
Let me explain. If you’re a beginner photographer, used to just taking quick snaps with your phone, gear doesn’t really matter for you. In some cases, expensive gear can even be getting in the way. If, say, you want to take a portrait of a friend, a cheap 50mm lens will do you great and it’ll also work just fine for your travel shots and maybe even landscapes. If you’re even more of a beginner and only have the kit lens that came with your camera, you’ll be able to do any kind of photography. You’re not going to get great results, but it is a wonderful opportunity to learn.
If you’re more advanced, and you are already considering buying a second lens, in 90% of the cases I’d recommend going for the previously mentioned 50mm. There are a lot of reasons for that, but the main ones are that the fixed focal length will teach you how to compose your shots well and the fact that it’s more limiting than the kit lens, will only boost your creativity. In that case gear does matter but in the way that a better lens is immediately going to make your photography significantly better but in the way that it will give you room to improve it yourself.
How much gear is going to affect your photography depends massively on the type of photography you do. One of the best portrait photographers I know is using a 40-year-old completely manual lens worth no more than a second hand 50mm, yet he’s still great. Gear affects street photography a bit more, but not too much either. For it you need a rather fast and accurate autofocus and a wide aperture and good ISO performance are recommendable but not needed. If you’re going out shooting during the day, even a kit lens will do the trick just fine. If you’re planning on doing landscape the story doesn’t change too much. You’re probably going to be using manual focus most of the time just to make sure everything is tack sharp. Here what would be more valuable is making sure there are no chromatic aberrations or vignetting, both of which are usually fixable by closing down the aperture (which you will be doing anyway) or easily fixable in Photoshop. Some of the genres where gear will be affecting your work more heavily are wildlife and sports photography. To be great at that you usually need a body with a high burst rate and a long lens with great autofocus.
Such a post can’t go without mentioning Chase Jarvis and his quote that “the best camera is the one that you have with you” and I couldn’t agree more. As I mentioned some days ago, I love film photography and I’ve shot more than one a film on a simple, idiot proof point and shoot camera and I’ve gotten great (example below) results with just that. All you need is to bring a camera with you.
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