A low-end DSLR body, an OK lens or two and a crash course in digital photography is all your friend would need from a technical basis unless you are wanting poster-sized reprints.
However, the one thing that has helped me the most by far as a novice photographer was reading Michael Freeman's book on composition: "The Photographer's Eye". It is decidedly non-technical in its approach as it has nary a mention of f-stops or pixel counts, but shows you in a straightforward fashion what makes a "good" photograph to the human eye. He's a very good writer to boot.
http://digital-photography-school.co...reeman-review#