LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process

HT2299 - Time for New Hard Drives I'm not an expert on technology so I listen to the advice of those who know. I once read that it is a good strategy to replace our hard drives every 3-5 years or so. It's been five since my last updates, so I've been on the hunt. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2298 - Style and Presets You may have heard me talk about style in a previous podcast. I find that style today is not a single aesthetic for a photographer's career, but rather an aesthetic the is appropriate for a project. Each project we do has a style that amplifies the content. Presets have a role in this way of thinking. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

LW1459 - Permanence Is Not a Property of the Medium All of us who are serious about photographic prints have been trained to care enough about our images to process them to the highest archival standards. The premise behind this is that the longevity of our work lies in the permanence of the medium. But is that true? Books are perhaps one of the most substantial ways that we can share our work, but books disappear. Maybe the key to longevity is not the medium but rather the content, relevance, and emotional impact of our work. All previous episodes of our weekly podcast are available to members of LensWork Online. 30-day Trial Memberships are only $10. Instant access, terabytes of content, inspiration and ideas that expand daily with new content. Sign up for instant access! You might also be interested in. . . Every Picture Is a Compromise, a series at www.brooksjensenarts.com. and... "How to" tutorials and camera reviews are everywhere on YouTube, but if you're interested in photography and the creative life, you need to know about the incredible resources you can access as a member of LensWork Online.

HT2297 - Abandoned Buildings Are More Than Abandoned Architecture Along with sand dunes and waterfalls, the most frequent subject we see in submissions to LensWork is abandoned buildings. Particularly prevalent are farm houses and industrial sites. What distinguishes these projects is the extent to which they tell a story of the people who are now gone rather than the architecture that remains. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2296 - Selective Color For much of photography's history, a fundamental decision for photographers revolved around whether an image should be color or black and white. Such thinking, in the age of digital processing, now seems perfectly archaic. Selective color is a wonderful technique that inherently includes new options in composition. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2295 - The Fruitless Search for Perfection Artmaking by definition (especially in photography) seems to be the search for perfection. Perfection, like a perpetual motion machine, is an illusion — one might even call it a sickness. If the perfect isn't the goal, what is? Words that come to mind are immersion, connection, harmony, awareness. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2294 - A Real Photographer "You have a really good camera, you must be a real photographer." We've all heard this. What does it mean to be a real photographer? I'm not sure this is an answerable question, but it feels to me that it has to do far less with gear and far more with a state of mind. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2293 - Stitching as a Wide Angle Workaround The other day I was out photographing with a single lens, a longish zoom, and found myself in a pickle. The shot I wanted required a wide angle of view I would normally capture with a wide-angle lens. Since I didn't have one, I simply stitched a pano and accomplished a result that was close enough. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2292 - Everything Bigger Is More Complicated Bigger cameras, bigger prints, bigger books, bigger projects — all are more complicated because of their size. If your project has become overwhelming, consider downsizing as a means to simplify the challenge. A favorite maxim of mine is that "It's better to say one thing well, than to say too much poorly." Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2291 - The Director's Cut in Photography With lots of movies these days, there is a commercial release version and a longer, more inclusive "director's cut." Why can't we do the same sort of thing with our photography projects? At the end of a PDF project, for example, what if there was a section with additional images, or link that went to a web gallery that included images that were not used in the "commercial release" version? Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

LW1458 - Lessons in Editing In 2009, I visited an exhibition in China that included some 1,500 photographs. I learned two things in the presence of such a firehose of images. First, good work does not elevate the whole, but the whole can drag the good work down to its level. Second, that exhibition led me to a better way to use Lightroom's star ratings when editing a project. All previous episodes of our weekly podcast are available to members of LensWork Online. 30-day Trial Memberships are only $10. Instant access, terabytes of content, inspiration and ideas that expand daily with new content. Sign up for instant access! You might also be interested in. . . Every Picture Is a Compromise, a series at www.brooksjensenarts.com. and... "How to" tutorials and camera reviews are everywhere on YouTube, but if you're interested in photography and the creative life, you need to know about the incredible resources you can access as a member of LensWork Online.

HT2290 - What We Remember Is Questionable We all carry dozens if not hundreds of images in our mental gallery. But does our mental gallery accurately and completely retain all that we've seen in a image? Here's a fascinating exercise that makes a powerful point about what we remember. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2289 - What Is Gained with a Large Print Let's pretend we could measure a viewer's response to a photograph. If they look at a large print, say 28x42" and have X amount of experience, what fractional portion of X will they have with a smaller print, say an 8x10"? Caution, this may be a trick question. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2288 - Lightroom Mobile Now in My Everyday Workflow Until recently, I never considered Lightroom Mobile a serious tool. Simply said, my phone screen is too small for me to consider Lightroom Mobile's image processing of any value. Last fall, however, I discovered a use for a couple Lightroom Mobile features that now consistently contribute to my everyday workflow. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2287 - What Causes Rejection What characteristics of an image you are working on causes you to reject it? What characteristic of an image causes of viewer to reject it? Are these the same things? If not, are we fretting and fussing over elements in our images that are without consequence to our viewers? Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2286 - I Dropped a Lens Oops, crash, bounce, ouch. Not the first time, and I'm sorry to say probably not the last time. The question after dropping a lens is always a concern that some glass has slipped out of alignment. To find out, I did some pixel peeping to see if the lens was performing up to standards. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2285 - Fast Lenses in the Age of DeNoise and LensBlur I use shallow depth of field less frequently than a lot of photographers, probably because I don't shoot many portraits. Nonetheless, I've always carried a fast prime for those occasions when I might need it. Truth be told, I can't remember the last time I used it. According the EXIF data in Lightroom, it was 6 years ago for a few shots and before that was in 2013. Do I still need a fast prime? Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2284 - Five Clichés to Improve Your Photography It's easy to discount bumper-sticker wisdom as trite and simplistic. One the other hand, K-I-S-S is always good advice. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

LW1457 - Straying from Conventions Everybody complains about dandelions in their yard, but photographically they are just gorgeous little plants. Who among us has not photographed a dandelion once it's gone to seed? This has me thinking about other botanical subjects. Photographs of roses, orchids, peonies, calla lilies, all well and good. But why does no one ever photograph poison ivy, thistle, mullein, and all the other weeds against which we are so prejudiced? The artist's role is to be a seer, and it appears that part of being a seer is to let go of our prejudices. All previous episodes of our weekly podcast are available to members of LensWork Online. 30-day Trial Memberships are only $10. Instant access, terabytes of content, inspiration and ideas that expand daily with new content. Sign up for instant access! You might also be interested in. . . Every Picture Is a Compromise, a series at www.brooksjensenarts.com. and... "How to" tutorials and camera reviews are everywhere on YouTube, but if you're interested in photography and the creative life, you need to know about the incredible resources you can access as a member of LensWork Online.

HT2276 - I Like That One Creating art is an act of unrequited faith. We produce and send our work out into the world. Like the author of a used book, we have no idea where or when our work might connect with a viewer, or if it ever will. That's a reality we'd best be comfortable with or that unknown might discourage our productivity. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2282 - Photographer, Storyteller, Artist, Observer When I first picked up a camera in high school, I set my sights on becoming a photographer. With the passage of time, I started to realize my role as a storyteller. Eventually, I became comfortable with the term artist. Lately, I've been using the term observer. Perhaps we are all a blending of these characteristics. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2281 - The Problem with Scanning Negatives I once calculated, just for fun, that I have exposed, developed, and ready for printing about 12,000 negatives. My creative life is bifurcated between those negatives and my current digital archives. I keep thinking I should go back and scan those negatives and add them to my digital assets. The problem is that I now recognize, in my maturity, how truly immature (i.e., awful) many of those images are. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2280 - I Am A Contemporary of Walker Evans, Yikes At an early workshop that I attended and showed my nascent Made of Steel work, the instructor suggested that 100 years from now or more I will be considered a contemporary of Walker Evans. That is to say, our work will be seen in the context of photographers who have proceeded us by generations. My sense of being flattered was quickly overpowered by debilitating intimidation. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2279 - Deciding Which Media We are so fortunate to have so many potential media we can use for each project. Print, book, folio, chapbook, PDF, web gallery — and I'm sure I forgotten some. For each project we do, an important decision is which media (plural) shall we use? Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2277 - The Intersection of Life and Scene I'm wrapping up my month in Oregon and reflecting on what I've seen and photographed here during these last few weeks. There is so much left to do, but time is running out. Come to think of it, that sense of the incomplete is a lifelong reality for every photographic trip I've been on. Perhaps that is just the nature of being an artist; we live in the intersection of life and scene. We accumulate moments with a little luck and happenstance. Our work is the map of our life, a record of chance encounters with subjects and weather. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

LW1456 - Too Much of a Good Idea A frequent characteristic we see in submissions to LensWork is when a photographer develops an interesting idea but then carries that idea too far with not enough image variations. The single image, a trilogy, perhaps even a Seeing in SIXES might be sufficient, but the photographer has explored the idea for 60 or 80 images and then neglected the all-important editing and selection process. Our old friend FOMO once again. All previous episodes of our weekly podcast are available to members of LensWork Online. 30-day Trial Memberships are only $10. Instant access, terabytes of content, inspiration and ideas that expand daily with new content. Sign up for instant access! You might also be interested in. . . Every Picture Is a Compromise, a series at www.brooksjensenarts.com. and... "How to" tutorials and camera reviews are everywhere on YouTube, but if you're interested in photography and the creative life, you need to know about the incredible resources you can access as a member of LensWork Online.

HT2276 - I Like That One When someone looks at a collection of my chapbooks or PDFs and says, "I like that one" I know I've failed completely. The statement, "I like that one" is a statement about them and their values with which my artwork just happens to agree. My artwork succeeds when they say, "I've never thought about that" or "I've never looked at it that way." Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2275 - Why They Call It Fishing You've probably all heard that old canard that they call it fishing, rather than catching, for a reason. The exact same thing exists in photography. When I'm out in the field I prefer not to think that I'm making art, but rather that I'm exploring the world. The artwork comes from that exploration, but rarely takes place simultaneously. Being out there with our antennae in full use is its own reward. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2274 - A Means to Depth She asked, "What is so special about photography?" I see photography as a means to explore the world, and that includes exploring our deeper self. I'm not sure photography is any better than any other expressive medium, but it's at least equal to any other artistic pursuit. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2273 - Why You Made the Photograph Every image you finish was completed because of some purpose you had in mind. You have chosen to share something you feel is important enough to photograph and work into a finished project or framed image. Why? Doesn't it make sense that somehow that intent needs to be shared with viewers? We are all so bombarded with images these days that they are far too easily ignored unless we have a strong motivation for spending time with them. Why you made the photograph is more important now than ever. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2272 - Black and White Is Almost Never Black and White Nothing in a photograph is quite so bothersome as when the black are crushed or the whites are blown out. I can understand in certain occasions when this is a desired aesthetic, but those are rare occasions. When we see it in a picture, it almost always seems to be a processing mistake. I find it's most often the result of bad monitor calibration. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2271 - Working a Location for Its Subtleties Every the time we stop our travels, get out of the car, and start looking for photographs, there will inevitably be a few that are easy, immediate, obvious, and likely cliché. I've come to accept the fact that I have to shoot those images — even though I will probably never use them — just to get them out of the way and move past them. It's only then that I can start working a location for its subtleties. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2270 - Beyond the Circle of Our Fellow Photographers One of my lifelong regrets about photography has been that the audience for most fine art photography, particularly for contemporary photographers, are other photographers. Who shops in the photography section in your local bookstore? Assuming, that is, that it has a photography section. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

LW1455 - The Powerful Seduction of Representationalism The other day I spent about 40 minutes working on one of the new captures from Eastern Oregon. I converted it to a black and white, dealt with the delicate issues of balancing lights and darks, fussed and tweaked until I felt I had an interesting and artistic rendition of the scene that was an accurate vision of my response. The first comment I received from one of the family members was that she preferred the color image, before I had done any processing at all. This is the core of a huge dilemma in fine art photography. Sometimes our objective for making a photograph (artistic expression) is not at all what our viewers' expectations are (representationalism). All previous episodes of our weekly podcast are available to members of LensWork Online. 30-day Trial Memberships are only $10. Instant access, terabytes of content, inspiration and ideas that expand daily with new content. Sign up for instant access! You might also be interested in. . . Every Picture Is a Compromise, a series at www.brooksjensenarts.com. and... "How to" tutorials and camera reviews are everywhere on YouTube, but if you're interested in photography and the creative life, you need to know about the incredible resources you can access as a member of LensWork Online.

HT2269 - 3400 Pixels on the Long Side There is still some confusion about file sizes that pops up from time to time. I remember magazines saying that they required a 15 megabyte file. That's a meaningless measurement that depends on the image compression. I'll occasionally get a question about what the PPI should be for submissions to LensWork. That, too, is a meaningless measurement. What counts is the pixel dimensions of the image, assuming that it hasn't been up-rezed. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2268 - Our Memory is Not Always Reliable As photographers, our memory of the place or the moment we photographed can cloud what we remember about the images or projects we made there. Getting fixated on those memories can interfere with potential projects without our even being aware of it. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2267 - Cameras Don't Make Pictures, but They Do Make Pictures Possible I've been photographing this week in eastern Oregon. I've been here so often, I shouldn't need to return. This time, however, I'm here with a digital camera and a long lens and the combination has allowed me to make images I've wanted to for decades but couldn't accomplish with a view camera. For example, so far I have at least a dozen long-form panoramas, the longest of which will print to 12-inches by 6-feet. Now I just need to figure out how I'm going to display them. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2266 - The Exotic Cliché It's always an adventure to photograph in an iconic location. But let's be honest, how much of an accomplishment is it to make a photograph that looks like thousands of others? I remember being stunned by the number of people at the Zabriskie Point overlook, so many that they've paved the walkway to the overlook to accommodate the masses. I didn't walk up there, but I did use the Port-a-Pottie in the parking lot. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2265 - The Non-Exotic Location Anyone can go to Yosemite and make an impressive photo because Yosemite itself is impressive. In fact, you have to work at it to make a bad photograph in Yosemite. I find that kind of photography fun and even rewarding — but not much of a challenge. As an artist who wants to progress in the creative life, I find it much more useful to challenge myself with images from non-exotic locations that require more effort to see creatively. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2264 - Why I Dislike Guidebooks I understand that as tourists there are things we must see in order to have the full tourist experience. As artists, however, isn't our challenge to see, experience, and interpret the world with our own response? For me, the act of discovery is the core of the art life, not the successfully completed checklist of pre-digested aesthetic tautologies. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2263 - A Deadline, 15-Minutes from Now Recognizing the moment is a skill that all of us are in the process of developing — with greater and greater facility as our endeavors in photography deepen. Learning to see in trilogies and SIXES quickly is a practice that pays unexpected dividends. Rather than engage a project that requires time an dedication, why not experiment with a project that is completed quickly, say 15 minutes? Sounds unreasonable? What about 30 minutes, half a day, a weekend? Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

LW1454 - Learning to Self-Critique When I was starting out in photography I had no idea how to self-critique or even that it was a necessary skill I could develop. Looking back on it, I now realize that self-critique is the essence of the creative process. Too bad this isn't a skill that is taught purposely to all beginning photographers. Not what it is, but what it could be. What the image wants to be. Honesty, empathy, some visual literacy for context, and the experience and wisdom that come with practice. All previous episodes of our weekly podcast are available to members of LensWork Online. 30-day Trial Memberships are only $10. Instant access, terabytes of content, inspiration and ideas that expand daily with new content. Sign up for instant access! You might also be interested in. . . Every Picture Is a Compromise, a series at www.brooksjensenarts.com. and... "How to" tutorials and camera reviews are everywhere on YouTube, but if you're interested in photography and the creative life, you need to know about the incredible resources you can access as a member of LensWork Online.

HT2262 - Treasure Every Opportunity The subtitle here is don't ever take anything for granted. He's been spending the last few days in Oregon, the place where I live for 35 years and did so much of my early photography. Now that I live in New York, Oregon has become an exotic location that I see and can photograph only rarely. I realize now what an incredible treasure and opportunity it was to spend so much time here exploring the coast, the farmlands, the gorge, the ranch lands, the desert. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2261 - Seeing Is Not Composing A bit of a cliche for beginning photographers is SZM — Super Zoom Mind. We see, say, a distant mountain, pull up our camera and photograph it only to be disappointed when the mountain is so small in the print. We see the mountain with our telescopic mind rather than composing a picture that includes the mountain. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2260 - Creativity Rejoices in Routine Two creative individuals who I particularly admire are Anthony Trollope and Johannes Brahms. What these two have in common and have provided as examples for the creative life is the consistency of their creative output by the routines they religiously kept. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2259 - The Market for Used Photographs I spent the day yesterday in one of my favorite used book stores, Robert's Books in Lincoln City, Oregon. This is a giant building filled to the brim with used books of every kind and age and interest you could possibly imagine. I picked up three volumes of short stories that I'd never heard of or seen before, treasures I am already enjoying here at the beach. And then it dawned on me, why is there no market for used photographs the way there is for used books? Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2258 - An Anticipation Sport I am not a sports or wildlife photographer. What I mean by that is that I'm not trained nor practiced at doing that kind of photography. Recently however, I set out to photograph my grandkids at their softball game. My respect for sports photographers has skyrocketed. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2256 - My Inaccurate History of Photography We have each created our own photographic literacy and history of photography by the books and exhibitions we've chosen to see. That necessarily leads to holes in our understanding. For example, I know very little about German photography — and I know that hole in my knowledge means I'm missing some great work. And that is just one example! Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

LW1453 - To Thine Own Self Be True A friend of mine was recently offered an exhibition in a nice gallery. He was excited for the opportunity, but then began the negotiations and compromises the gallery requested. For example, the gallery wanted him to adopt a limited edition strategy which he doesn't do. The gallery wanted a certain kind of mat board and framing. Is it advisable that we allow the gallery to influence our artistic endeavors like this? All previous episodes of our weekly podcast are available to members of LensWork Online. 30-day Trial Memberships are only $10. Instant access, terabytes of content, inspiration and ideas that expand daily with new content. Sign up for instant access! You might also be interested in. . . Every Picture Is a Compromise, a series at www.brooksjensenarts.com. and... "How to" tutorials and camera reviews are everywhere on YouTube, but if you're interested in photography and the creative life, you need to know about the incredible resources you can access as a member of LensWork Online.

HT2255 - Moments Happen Managing moments doesn't seem like it would be the core of the creative life, but the longer I pursue the art life the more I think managing moments is the key to success. Elsewhere, I've mentioned capturing ideas when the bubble up from our subconscious. Gear is another example. We all crave and love a full-featured camera that allows it to make the images of our dreams. Many times, however, such a dream machine comes with a penalty that completely neutralizes its capabilities. It's better to have a good camera with you than it is to have a perfect camera at home on the shelf. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2254 - Cropping a Vertical Out of a Horizontal It's a bad practice to crop a vertical out of a horizontal capture. For one reason, doing so loses over half the pixels your camera captures. Isn't it a better strategy to just develop the habit of composing both a horizontal capture and a vertical capture wherever possible? Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!