diff --git a/sane-backends.changes b/sane-backends.changes
index f1934ae..864dd92 100644
--- a/sane-backends.changes
+++ b/sane-backends.changes
@@ -1,3 +1,9 @@
+-------------------------------------------------------------------
+Tue Dec 29 22:32:37 UTC 2015 - stefan.bruens@rwth-aachen.de
+
+- remove gphoto2 backend, as is usefulness is highly questionable,
+  but adds many (indirect) build and runtime dependencies
+
 -------------------------------------------------------------------
 Tue Oct  6 10:55:10 CEST 2015 - jsmeix@suse.de
 
diff --git a/sane-backends.spec b/sane-backends.spec
index ae16c90..e2b79ca 100644
--- a/sane-backends.spec
+++ b/sane-backends.spec
@@ -17,7 +17,6 @@
 
 
 Name:           sane-backends
-BuildRequires:  libgphoto2-devel
 %if 0%{?suse_version} > 1130
 BuildRequires:  libieee1284-devel
 %else
@@ -223,7 +222,6 @@ export LDFLAGS="-L/%_lib $LDFLAGS"
             --sbindir=%{_sbindir} \
             --mandir=%{_mandir} \
             --datadir=%{_datadir} \
-            --with-gphoto2 \
             --with-docdir=%{_defaultdocdir}/sane-backends \
             --enable-pthread \
             --enable-libusb_1_0 \