LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process

Here's a Thought… #2710 with Brooks Jensen Your Best Is Often the Least Important An over-emphasized component of fine art photography is the assumption that "making stone-cold winners" is the heart of the pursuit. I would propose that super-winners are not the goal but can, occasionally, be the result. We make art for the process, not the accolades. There is a cultural pressure to be and produce "the best of the best of the best." (stolen from Men in Black) Far too often our very best work relies on a generous helping of luck. Take all the lucky ones you can get, but don't confuse luck with artistic accomplishment. Become a member of LensWork Online and have access to all 2700+ Here's a Thought… commentaries.

Here's a Thought… #2709 with Brooks Jensen The Return to Film I think I understand why some photographers are returning to film and analog photography. There is a sense of accomplishment in the production of a wonderful gelatin silver print that is absent (or at least diminished) with an inkjet print or an Instagram post. What is missing from this debate is the source of the thrill. Does the thrill of accomplishment come from the successful command of the medium or from the depth of connection with the content? Become a member of LensWork Online and have access to all 2700+ Here's a Thought… commentaries.

Here's a Thought… #2708 with Brooks Jensen Better Than I Remembered With some frequency now, I find that as I look back at my older unprinted archives, I'll stumble upon an image with new appreciation. How did I miss this one? Is it that my processing tools are now so much better? Is it that I'm older and more artistically mature? Is it that the passage of time has made it easier to distance myself from the experiential memories of the moment? Become a member of LensWork Online and have access to all 2700+ Here's a Thought… commentaries.

Here's a Thought… #2707 with Brooks Jensen Blind Spots and Habits Now that I've been photographing for decades, there are some subjects and trends that have become more identifiable with a larger data pool to pull from. Evidently, I find walls irresistible. Chairs must be one of my favorite subjects if the count of how many photos of them I have is any indication. Trees and rocks rate high on the list. I have no interest in architecture, but you'd never know it by looking at how many photos I have of buildings. Sunsets, wildlife, urban streets, and sports events are almost completely missing from my archives. I'm wondering if a list of what I've never photographed could lead to something interesting? Become a member of LensWork Online and have access to all 2700+ Here's a Thought… commentaries.

Here's a Thought… #2706 with Brooks Jensen The Creative Life Is a Daily Habit Every waking moment is an opportunity to make a photograph — but we don't. Moments don't rise to the level of photographic importance until we sense them. Photography happens at the intersection of a particular moment and our sensitivity to perceive it. I'll pause for a minute for you to think about that. If true, doesn't it seem obvious that the limitation of creativity is our sensitivity, not the availability of moments? If so, the challenge of being an artist is all about developing our sensitivity to every moment, not the never-ending search for the special moment. Become a member of LensWork Online and have access to all 2700+ Here's a Thought… commentaries.

HT2705 - Abundance Can Be a Curse I had a couple of weeks last fall to photograph in the San Juan mountains of southern Colorado. The weather was perfect, the fall colors at their peak, and I just kept shooting. I now have 967 RAW captures from that couple of weeks. What do I do with 967 perfectly focused, properly exposed, lovely images? They can't all be winners! If I toss half of them, I'll still have 400+. If I keep only the top 10%, I'll still have almost 100. I'm beginning to think that too many is a curse worse than too few. Become a member of LensWork Online and have access to all 2700+ Here's a Thought… commentaries.

HT2704 - A Photographic 2-Minute Drill There is a situational strategy in football when the time runs short. It's called the "2-minute drill." Its essence is accomplishing a lot in very short time. We could borrow this idea for project-oriented photography. If you've only got 20 minutes or so to photograph, how do you turn that into short, multi-image project? How should we prepare ourselves for such opportunities? Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2703 - Internalizing the Scene I assume that all of you are aware of the idea that a camera is a mirror, that every picture we make is a reflection of who we are. There is a kernel of truth in this idea, but I don't think it's automatic nor universal. To internalize a scene requires a conscious effort on our part. That moment is the seed of creating artwork. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

LW1516 - Beyond the Rectangle We photographers have quadrilaterals on the brain. Why? The world is not quadrilateral. Why not compose in circles, ovals, or other shapes? Is it because cutting round or oval mats is so difficult? Are we prisoners of the straight-edge ruler? Can we not learn from our lenses — which by the way cast round images onto our quadrilateral sensors? 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.

HT2702 - When a Group Ceases to Be a Group One of the interesting things about a multiple image project is how the viewer assembles the collective idea that binds the images into a unified expression. Show three images as a group and the viewer will try to connect them. When the group becomes too large, however, it can be more difficult to see so many images as a group. I think this is one of the reasons "Seeing in SIXES" works so well. It's the sweet spot between the single image and too many to be a group This RSS feed includes only the most recent seven Here's a Thought episodes. All of them — over 2600 and counting! — are available to members of LensWork Online. Try a 30-day membership for only $10 and discover the literally terabytes of content about photography and the creative process. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2701 - A Personal Pile I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this. I have a "personal pile" of prints that I rarely (often never) share with anyone. They are not embarrassing, nor obscure. They are ones that I'd just as soon not have my feelings about them diluted or polluted with other's opinions. To call them "spiritual" would be too strong, but they are moments that I treasure and would like to preserve. Maybe I'm being silly about these images, but that's the way I feel. This RSS feed includes only the most recent seven Here's a Thought episodes. All of them — over 2500 and counting! — are available to members of LensWork Online. Try a 30-day membership for only $10 and discover the literally terabytes of content about photography and the creative process.

HT2700 - Small Bites I wish my brain worked in a continuous straight line, but it doesn't. I bounce from idea to idea. For years I've fought this by trying to be creative in a continuous straight line. Why not take the easy path and develop an approach to project development and even image processing that uses a small bite strategy? This is not a creativity problem, it's an organizational problem. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2699 - The Creative Life Is a Daily Habit It's almost a cliché to suggest that a creative life is a daily thing. The truth is that it's true. A drop of ink in a gallon of water changes the entire gallon. A drop of creativity in an ordinary day changes the entire day. Does that mean you need to shoot pictures everyday? Might be fun, but for most of us that's impractical. The only thing I know that I can do every day of my life is think about creativity, about photography, about locations, about ideas. Thinking can go with me everywhere, fill a minute here or there, and introduce a drop of creative momentum into every day. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2698 - My Favorite Features of Digital Processing It seems that with digital processing we can do anything — and do it, if need be, at the pixel level. I find, however that there are a few tools that have dramatically allowed me to make images that were essentially impossible in the analog darkroom. These have become so integral in my image making that I can now barely imagine photography without them. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2697 - New Life for Old Ideas Over the last 50 years in photography, I've had a number of ideas that I thought were good at the time, rejected because they were too odd, and now realize they were pretty good ideas all along. I let convention rule my thinking, an attitude that I now realize is always a mistake. Never let convention get in the way of your creativity. Here are three examples. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2696 - Photographs Are Never Real The arguments against AI are often punctuated with concerns about those images being fake. Aren't all photographs fake? All photographs are flat, two-dimensional things that show us the world in a significantly reduced scale. The only sense in which photographs are real is that they are symbols, metaphors, representations of a moment or an idea, stand-ins, pointers, guides, translators, in short a photograph is not "the thing itself" in spite of that notion being repeated in photographic art circles Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

LW1515 - On Your Walls at Home What artwork do you have hanging on the walls at your house? What photographic artwork do you have hanging in your house? Let's consider this more deeply: What percentage of the work you have hanging in your house is yours and what percentage is photography by others? Most photographers I know own lots of work by others, but display in their house mostly their own work. Does that make them egotistical or just proud? Do we display our own work to share or to brag? How does your answer to this question shape what you have on your walls right now? 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.

HT2695 - Creative Possibilities for Two-sided Inkjet Paper The availability of two-sided inkjet paper has opened up fascinating doors of creativity. With two-sided paper we can do folded paper books like chapbooks, or three-fold brochure-like presentations. Another idea is to use two-sided paper for a significantly expanded provenance to a print. This RSS feed includes only the most recent seven Here's a Thought episodes. All of them — over 2600 and counting! — are available to members of LensWork Online. Try a 30-day membership for only $10 and discover the literally terabytes of content about photography and the creative process. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2694 - Motivating the Viewer Imagine that I wanted you to read Tolstoy's War and Peace. What would your reaction be? On the other hand, what if I suggested you read today's funny papers because they were hilarious. What would your reaction be? I use these examples to illustrate the relationship between motivation and required effort. A large and complicated thing requires more effort and motivation than a humble and simple thing. Human nature being what it is, doesn't this pertain equally to photography? This RSS feed includes only the most recent seven Here's a Thought episodes. All of them — over 2500 and counting! — are available to members of LensWork Online. Try a 30-day membership for only $10 and discover the literally terabytes of content about photography and the creative process.

HT2693 - Every Picture Is a Story, or Should Be It's probably silly of me to make such a definitive statement, but I can't help but think for the vast majority of images the story told through the visuals is more important than the characteristics of the visuals. Story is more important than tones, more important than composition, more important than the medium itself. Photography is more powerful than to limit itself to a "show" medium; it's a "show and tell" medium. Tones, composition, medium are all tools in service to story. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2689 - New Software Capabilities vs Convenience Features Software updates have become a part of every digital photographers routine. Every time a new software update is announced, I look forward to new capabilities that will open up new ways to improve my images. So many times, however, the so-called "update" has more to do with making things easier than with making things possible. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

LW1514 - Where You Draw the Line We are fast approaching that point where each of us need to draw the line about our involvement with AI and photography. Come to think of it, we may have already passed the line, at least for some of us. At what point do you call an AI generated image a fake? At what point does the involvement of AI mean the image is no longer artwork? No longer photography, no longer yours? What amount of AI are you willing to accept as you create your work? Culturally we are struggling with these issues, but individually we can make immediate decisions for ourselves about where we want to draw the line for 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.

HT2688 - Outside the Box We've all heard that age-old maxim about creativity and "thinking outside the box." We are supposed to hear this exhortation relative to our unconscious habits. I would propose that the box we are supposed to get outside of is the camera itself. When I find myself thinking I've made a nice photograph, I know I need to let go of photography and remember that art is about LIFE, not our chosen medium of expression. This RSS feed includes only the most recent seven Here's a Thought episodes. All of them — over 2600 and counting! — are available to members of LensWork Online. Try a 30-day membership for only $10 and discover the literally terabytes of content about photography and the creative process. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2687 - You Must Have a Really Good Camera How do these kinds of notions become so wide spread? If I owned a Steinway, would that make me an accomplished pianist? Would a fancier fountain pen make me a better novelist? Of course not. But then we often think a better camera might be the answer to improving our photographs — perpetuating the myth that the tool makes the image. If not a new camera, what should we do to improve our art? Answer: Finish more projects and study the history of art. This RSS feed includes only the most recent seven Here's a Thought episodes. All of them — over 2500 and counting! — are available to members of LensWork Online. Try a 30-day membership for only $10 and discover the literally terabytes of content about photography and the creative process.

HT2686 - How We Want to See the World In their candid moments, most any landscape photographer will admit that most of the world is not very photogenic. That's why we run off to the exotic locations of extraordinary beauty to make our photographs. We'll drive mile after boring mile to get to that national park scene or that overlook of majestic wonder. Why? Could it be that we photograph what we wish the world to be rather than the world as we find it all around us? Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2685 - I Was There is a component to being a fine art photographer that is rooted in personal testament. Every photograph says, in part, "I was here, I existed, this is what I saw, this was important to me." The opposite is to attempt to be invisibly objective and let the subject speak for itself. I suppose both approaches are valid, but there is no question that the former requires a larger sense of ego. I have to confess that when I create art without ego seems to me to be illustration rather than artistic expression. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2684 - Feeling Futile I don't know an artist who doesn't feel, from time to time, a touch of futility. An image fails to live up to our wishes. We look at that stack of unsold photographs diligently stored in our closets. Rejection from publication — this could be a lengthy list, indeed. It's at these times when I try to remember why I do photography: for the experience, not the results. In this regard, photography is more a hedonistic relation to life than it is a means of manufacture. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2683 - Criteria For Choosing a Camera What is the most important thing you look for when choosing a camera? Megapixels? Price? Ergonomics? Features? Portability? Weight? Brand? What if I were to suggest that you first choose the lens(es) and then the camera that can use those lenses? Even weirder than that, I once chose my cameras based on the LCD screen! Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2682 - No One Cares How Hard You Worked Of course you worked hard to make that wonderful photograph! It takes time, energy, money, effort, and even sacrifice to make a photograph. Unfortunately, none of our struggles are important to others as they look at the results of our blood, sweat, and tears. Whenever I hear a photographer drone on about how hard they had to work at it, the more it sounds like whining. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2664 - Our Attachment to Stuff In the early 1980s, I fumbled a lens swap and dropped an expensive view camera lens into the Pacific Ocean. I grieved then and still grieve to this day. Why is stuff so important? Every photographer I know has a piece of gear they lament selling — or losing. Isn't it silly that we can be so attached to stuff? I used to think this had something to do with the loss of potential, but now I'm not so sure. I once had a client who owned a Western store and I learned a great deal about stuff and our sense of self-identity from that experience. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2663 - How Each Image Contributes Although they are both forms of music, listening to a piano recital is a completely different experience than listening to a fully orchestrated symphony. The same can be said when comparing the single, standalone image and the multiple-image project. In the orchestra, each instrument contributes its part to the whole. In the multi-image project, each image contributes its uniqueness yet still exists in harmony with all the others. This is the key to selecting the images to be included in the project. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2662 - One Grain of Sand It's difficult to admire one grain of sand while we are standing on the beach. I offer this as a metaphor for photography today. You and I sweat bullets to make a photograph we can be proud of, but if we look about a bit, we see trillions of photographs being made every year here in the digital age. Even if our masterpiece is spectacular, it is difficult to get it noticed in the tsunami of images being produced every day. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2661 - Images That Changed My Life Knowing my love for photography, a non-photographer friend of mine recently asked if there were images that literally changed my life. I fumbled an answer at the time, but I've thought a lot about this in the recent weeks. I realized I have two sets of answers: images I produced that changed my creative life, and images others produced that have had an enormous impact on me. The most interesting part of this thought experiment is to compare the two sets of images. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2660 - The Drama of Good vs Evil Can you think of an artistic expression that doesn't involve, in some way, the drama of good versus evil, innocence versus the diabolical, the weak vs the strong, dark versus light? (You don't suppose I slipped that last one in for a reason?) If the central themes of art are rooted in drama, why would art photography not also be rooted in drama? If so, that leads us to the question How do we build drama into a photographic image? Perhaps even more informative is the question How do we build drama into a photographic project? This RSS feed includes only the most recent seven Here's a Thought episodes. All of them — over 2600 and counting! — are available to members of LensWork Online. Try a 30-day membership for only $10 and discover the literally terabytes of content about photography and the creative process. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2659 - Perfection or Enthusiasm Deep in the heart of an artist is the pursuit of perfection. It goes with the territory. Creating artwork is the one thing we do in our life without regard to time, expense, or even effort. We pursue perfection because we have faith that achieving perfection is a possibility with each creation we make. Is it? I'm not sure pursuit of perfection is the healthiest option. What if we change the measurement of success? What happens if we pursue enthusiasm, curiosity, and passion rather than perfection? This RSS feed includes only the most recent seven Here's a Thought episodes. All of them — over 2500 and counting! — are available to members of LensWork Online. Try a 30-day membership for only $10 and discover the literally terabytes of content about photography and the creative process.

HT2658 - Seducing The Eye of the Beholder Said another way, a way that can bypass the numb response to a cliché, art appreciation is an act of free will. Extending that thought even further, people look at your artwork because they've made a decision to do so in anticipation of some rewarding or beneficial experience. Where does that anticipation come from? What is our responsibility as art makers to build that anticipation so they are motivated to spend the time to see what we've produced? Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2657 - Guiding Their Consumption I know, that's sort of an odd title for this thought, but there's an important issue that demands our attention. Imagine you want to assemble sizable project of 100 or so images for a book or PDF. Selecting images is one challenge, but not the biggest one. How do you organize those images in the finished presentation? Sequential by date? Alphabetically? Location? Subject? Genre of photography? By which camera you used? Time of day? Time of year? Weather conditions?" Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2656 - Big Things Are Made from Little Things One of the great lessons from my dad who was also my coach, is an approach to making progress. He used to say that "inch by inch is a cinch, yard by yard is hard." Doesn't this equally well apply to art making? If you want to create a big thing like a book, an exhibition, a digital publication, a lifetime of creative output, the path to do so is one capture at a time, one processed image at a time, step by step, accumulating little successes one at a time. Aim for the Big; work the Small. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2655 - Do It Again and Again and Again The difference between a hobbyist and a professional is that a hobbyist practices until they get it right. A professional practices until they can't get it wrong. For some reason that advice seems to make sense for athletics, but in creative endeavors we often assume that all we need is the initial effort. This shows up particularly, I think, in travel photography. It's easy to assume that once we've visited a location and photographed it we don't need to go back and do it again. Nothing could be further from the truth. Ansel Adams wasn't lucky photographing Yosemite; he was persistent. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2654 - Those Delicate Highlights I remember a workshop instructor once suggesting that photographs live in Zone VIII. I'm not sure a definitive statement like this is universally accurate, but it definitely points in a direction I've found true more often than not. If we lose those delicate highlights, we end up with a gray smudge or an invisible blankness. I've found that the best images have, like us humans, a dependence on respiration. If a print doesn't breathe, it isn't alive. And that breath seems to reside in those delicate highlights.. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2653 - There Are No Bad Lenses, There Are No Perfect Lenses The other day I was working on some images in Lightroom and realized that one of them was a fantastically sharp image that I had made with a notoriously bad lens. Looking more closely at the EXIF data I realized this image had been shot in the middle of the zoom range and stopped down a bit. My "bad lens" performed beautifully. Wide open at maximum zoom this lens was just crap. Do I blame the lens for making bad pictures, or do I blame myself for not knowing the lens as well as I should have? This RSS feed includes only the most recent seven Here's a Thought episodes. All of them — over 2600 and counting! — are available to members of LensWork Online. Try a 30-day membership for only $10 and discover the literally terabytes of content about photography and the creative process. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2652 - A Grand Slam Home Run If you are a baseball fan like I am, you know what a thrill it is when your team hits a grand slam. A true baseball fan, however, knows that the occasional grand slam is not the reason to be a baseball fan. It just happens from time to time. The true fan loves every pitch, every swing, every hit, every subtlety of the game. I say the exact same thing about photography. The stone-cold winners are a thrill, but not the reason to be a photographer. This RSS feed includes only the most recent seven Here's a Thought episodes. All of them — over 2500 and counting! — are available to members of LensWork Online. Try a 30-day membership for only $10 and discover the literally terabytes of content about photography and the creative process.

HT2651 - Processing Delta In mathematics and statistics, delta is the measure of change. Strangely enough, I find this a useful concept in processing my photographic artwork. What is the delta (change) required between the scene captured and the artwork I envision? My role as a creator changes dramatically depending on the delta between the image capture by the camera and the finished photograph. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2650 - The Question Answered by the Caption First, let's admit that not every photograph needs a caption. If a photograph does need a caption, it can be useful to consider the question the caption is intended to answer. For so much of landscape photography, for example, the question is Where is this? With that as the question, providing location in the caption makes sense. But, is that the most important question? Is "Where?" more important than "Why?" Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2649 - Overwhelming Beauty Sometimes I really struggle as a landscape photographer. When the scene is overwhelmingly beautiful, one would think that making a successful photograph would be easier. It's not. The more beautiful the scene before my camera the more difficult it is for me to make manifest my personal response. I'm reduced to using the camera as a recorder rather than as a medium of personal expression. Said another way, the more beautiful the scene the more my picture looks like everyone else's. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2648 - One Hundred Compositions Let's say you find yourself in a fascinatingly photogenic location and decide to work it intensely. We've all had this experience at one time or another. What often happens to me is that the first dozen or so images are cliché, the easiest ones, the ones that probably copy other photographers, even if I'm unaware of their images. The next few dozen images might be my own, and are usually accompanied by a thrill. That emotion carries me downstream with enthusiasm. It's then that the real challenge starts has the easy ones are exhausted and I find myself swimming upstream where the most personal artwork inevitably can be found. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2647 - New Work Here in the 21st century, the volume of creative work that is being produced leads people inexorably to over-value the new. I don't recall anyone ever asking me to see work I did 25 years ago. The question is always, "What have you done that's new?" Or perhaps, "What are you currently working on?" I can't help but think that they're asking to see my work that is yet unproven and has not survived the test of time. Why is "the new" of greater interest than our proven, previous work? Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2646 - Your Very Best Imagine for a moment that some important personage asked to see your very best work. What would you show them? Would you show them your most popular images? Your best sellers? Would you show them your personal favorites? The latest project you've completed? Would you show them safe work or your more innovative and daring work? This RSS feed includes only the most recent seven Here's a Thought episodes. All of them — over 2600 and counting! — are available to members of LensWork Online. Try a 30-day membership for only $10 and discover the literally terabytes of content about photography and the creative process. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2645 - Trust Your Gut Yesterday I was discussing the 270 image captures of the rock walls of Capitol Reef that I photographed in 2012. I described how I only recently discovered a possible processing for those images. There's an interesting aspect of this story that is not obvious. In reviewing the 270 images, I found 37 that worked with this new processing idea. How do we know? What prompted me to reject the other 233? I think of Edward Weston and "the flame of recognition." This RSS feed includes only the most recent seven Here's a Thought episodes. All of them — over 2500 and counting! — are available to members of LensWork Online. Try a 30-day membership for only $10 and discover the literally terabytes of content about photography and the creative process.

HT2644 - An Entirely New Vision The creative idea might appear in an instant, or it might also require years of gestation. I was recently looking at a large collection of images and I had photographed in 2012 in southern Utah. From nowhere I can determine, an idea about how to process these RAW captures suddenly appeared. I could not count the number of times I've looked at these RAW files with no interest at all. How, then, does a wonderfully creative idea suddenly appear? I cannot over emphasize the value of working our image archives so long-dormant ideas have an opportunity to emerge. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2643 - The Problem with Canned Slide Shows Over the last 20 years, I've seen quite a number of photographic slide shows. The first was a multi-projector affair, with a musical sound track accompaniment in the 1980s. Recently, software has made assembling a slide show a snap. Too often, I find these presentations too metronomic, predictable, uninteresting after the first few images. Too bad, because they don't have to be. Today, a slide show is not a slide show; it's a video. It's not a sequential presentation of still images, it's a living, breathing visual experience. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!