LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process

HT2350 - Execution and Content When I look at artwork, it often involves two different types of response. I can admire a work of art because of its amazing execution, or I may admire a work of art for its emotive content. Execution involves a wonderment about how the artist did it. Content involves a dialog about why they did it. I've learned that I can't process both of these ways of thinking simultaneously. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2349 - Photography Under Glass I mentioned the other day that I had visited the Fenimore Museum near Cooperstown, New York. One thing that struck me as I wandering through the museum was that there was only one medium that was protected under glass — photographs. Also on display were paintings, sketches, etchings, prints of many varieties of media, but only the photographs were framed under glass. Is there a reason for this, or is it simply convention? This, in fact, was the topic of my very first Here's a Thought commentary back on March 1, 2019. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2348 - Photography Is a Personal Thing One of the most interesting photography books I've seen in a long time is by gallery owner Peter Fetterman and is titled The Power of Photography. Part of the reason this book is so special is that it is so personal. Federman reviews 120 images from his collection and tells us about it, not from its historic point of view but rather from his personal point of view. It reminds me that every picture is a story, every picture has a story, and every story is a personal one. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2347 - The Element of Surprise All drama involves a reveal of one kind or another. Audiences expect it and love it. The same can be true for photography. Why else would so many people get close to a photograph and look for hidden details? Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

LW1466 - The Questions I'm fascinated with the responses I hear when people look at my work. When I display photographs on the wall, I typically don't include a title for the individual images. This often generates questions, but rarely more than the two biggies — what and where. I can't remember anyone asking why I photographed that scene or photographed it in that way. Curiously enough, once I answer what or where, they almost immediately move to the next image. Does that say something about my work or about them? 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.

HT2346 - Tiny Print, Giant Mat In one of my visits to the Art Institute of Chicago, I saw a display of photography that consisted of 35mm contact prints matted and framed to 16x20". These tiny prints were impressive and memorable precisely because they so successfully invited close inspection. The convention is to surround the image with white border, but how much is the right amount? Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2345 - Print Metadata Digital photographs, we all know, have metadata that tells us a bit of the behind-the-scenes story of the image. Such information is useful for a variety of reasons including provenance and copyright specifics. As creators, such backstories can play an important role in our personal histories. But what about our prints? Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2344 - The Edge of the Image Every rule in art has exceptions. For example, never use the rule of thirds because it's formulaic; use the rule of thirds because it's the strongest way of composing. On several occasions, I've mentioned the importance of eliminating those little pokies that are often distractions at the very edge of the image. Sometimes, however, using the edge to cut an object asunder is a great way to expand the frame through the viewer's imagination. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2343 - Signature Tools Signing your work is important. It communicates far more than the author of the work. Your signature denotes completion of the work as well as approval of its craft and content. Therefore, it's worth thinking a bit about how you sign your work and with what tools you use in signing it. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2342 - The Illusion of Detail As I sit here looking across the backyard at the edge of the wild, I know that if I walked closer and closer, pulled out my magnifying glass or microscope, that with every step along the way I would reveal more and smaller detail. In a photograph, however, if we get too close and magnify too much our image dissolves into ink dots or grains of silver. In photography there is no detail, there's only the illusion of detail. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2341 - Screen Versus Print I'm an old print guy from way back. I love the physicality of prints. I love the experience of handling a print up close, the texture of the paper, the smell of ink. That said, I often find I prefer the dynamic range and vibrance of my images on screen. The mistake I routinely make is trying to make my prints look what I see on my screen. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2340 - Note the Audience Reaction From time to time we all have a chance to show our work. Praise is nice to receive, but it's even more valuable pay attention to the reactions you get from the work. Each viewer will tell you something if you just pay attention to their body language as well as their comments. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

LW1465 - The Original, Redux I was recently asked if I sell my original prints. In particular, this individual specified that they didn't want a reproduction, but rather they collect only original prints. It's been a while since I talked about this, so it may be a new idea to some of you. Here's what I said back on September 21, 2019 in my Here's a Thought comment of that day. 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.

HT2339 - The Age of Enlargement The advent of enlarged prints from negatives or glass plates dates back to the earliest days of photography. Nonetheless, enlargements weren't a regular feature of fine art photography until the early decades of the 20th century. Even into the 1940s contact printing that produced prints the same size as the negative ruled the roost. Today, we take enlargements for granted, but there is something to be said for the tradition of smaller prints. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2338 - Preserved by the Few Time moves on and what was once popular becomes almost forgotten. Try today to find a big band music radio station. History is preserved by a few, and a tenuous thread it is that links us to the past. As a contemporary photographer, I feel an obligation, a compulsion, a duty to keep the work of our predecessors alive, at least in my heart Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2337 - File Management and Your Memory I would have never guessed that a huge barrier to my creativity would be as simple as finding the image I remember taking in the haystack that is my Lightroom catalog. It's worse than finding a needle in that haystack, it's searching for one specific needle in a haystack of needles. The best advice I've heard about this challenge is to assess how your own memory works and build your organization to fit your brain. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2336 - Photography and Media The digital divide has created a dichotomy I've never heard discussed. That dichotomy is a generational one, I think. Those of us from the previous generation found photography mostly in books, and occasionally in original prints. Today, most of us see images digitally and even more rarely in original prints. (Fewer galleries, etc.) I wonder how much of this is the result of phenomenal image fidelity in books and digital displays? Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2335 - Find Your Own Path The Internet — indeed, the WORLD — is filled with creative types who all want to show you how they do it, whatever "it" is. Me included, I confess. The problem persists, however, that your path is your path and can only be revealed by you. Techniques can be taught, but creativity must be discovered, nurtured, searched for, allowed by you, for you. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2334 - The Opposite of Selfie We are supposedly taking trillions of pictures now according to experts who calculate such things. If we eliminate selfies from that count, I suspect the remaining images would total about six. I exaggerate to make a humorous point. Seriously, there'd be about eight. This tsunami of selfies exhibits a cultural narcissism that is breathtaking. I'm slightly frightened by the long-term implications of all these selfies. It seems to me the photography's greatest gift to humanity is its ability to concentrate our attention on others and the fascinating world we inhabit. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2333 - Learning from the Work You Don't Like I've made no secret that there are half a dozen master photographers whose work simply doesn't connect with me. Bill Brandt, Garry Winogrand, and Joel-Peter Witkin come to mind. Rather than ignore them, I found it very useful to spend time with their work exploring my disconnect. It's one thing to reflexively like work, but studying the work we don't like has an uncanny ability to clarify why we like what we do. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

LW1464 - When Images Have a Mind of Their Own Every time you click the shutter you have some idea of what you hope the finished image might be. Even if you are just "gathering assets," you have some idea what the image might look like when finished. More than that, can we agree that every time we click the shutter, we do so because we think we have a winner? Why else would you click the shutter? But then something happens to dampen our enthusiasm once when we start to work with the image. If 100% of the shutter clicks are motivated by a winner, why are not all of your images eventually winners? Seriously, what happens to diminish our enthusiasm for an image? 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.

HT2332 - To Tripod or Not I'm not fond of using a tripod. For 35 years, every picture I made had to involve a tripod because I was using view cameras. I've thoroughly enjoyed the freedom of handheld photography here in the age of image stabilization and ISO flexibility. That said, I can't deny that a goodly number of my images are better having used a tripod than they would have been had I tried to hand hold the exposure. More and more I find the first decision with every image it should I use the tripod or not. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2331 - The Tug-of-war Between Vision and Craft I've spent 50 years in photography developing my sense of aesthetics. Simultaneously, I've spent 50 years developing my craft in the hopes that I can eliminate the barriers between vision and capabilities. What happens when our capabilities equal (or exceed!) our vision? Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2330 - Overcoming My Prejudice Against Rain Give me a morning of fresh snowfall and I'm in photographic heaven. Give me a morning of drizzly rain and I want to go back to bed. What is it about rain that discourages photography? In nature and landscape, rain tends to saturate colors and creates lovely shiny leaves. What's not to like from a photographic perspective? Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2329 - Film, Ink, and Batteries - Our Dependence on Consumables Cleaning out the attic the other day, I ran across my old Polaroid SX-70 camera, otherwise currently known as a boat anchor. A friend of mine fears a crisis in his photography if Epson stopped making ink for his printer. And of course every digital camera uses a custom battery without which our cameras are best used as paperweights. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2328 - Thoroughly Ironic Pixels I don't see how anyone could disagree with the notion that we are seeing more small images than ever before. Statistically speaking, I'll bet most images you see these days are smaller than 8x10" because most of them you've seen on your phone, your tablet, or your laptop. And this is in the age of ever increasing megapixel cameras. My new camera, for example, has a 200 megapixel sensor ,um, in my phone! Really? Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2327 - The Value of Going Back In my youth, I'd never been anywhere to photograph so all locations were new and exciting adventures. As the years passed, my inclination was to always go someplace new because the thought of going back was always haunted by the idea that I've been there, done that. How silly! Such thinking completely eliminates artistic growth, changes of season, changes of weather, changes, period. Not only that, going back can be the greater challenge to our creativity by pushing us beyond our previous efforts. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2326 - The Problem with Liking Artwork What does it mean when we say we like someone's artwork? Its content agrees with our view of the world? That gets complicated because, for example, I like Picasso's Guernica, but I don't like war. Does it mean we admire their technique and craftsmanship? I have no doubt that Bartok was a talented composer, but I don't like listening to anything he wrote. Does it mean they've shown me a world I've never seen? Then why do I enjoy listening to the same music over and over again? Does liking artwork mean that it meets our expectations? Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

LW1463 - What Have You Learned Like most of you I suspect, I have a group of close friends who are also photographers and we occasionally have a thread of conversation in our email that is both interesting and valuable in our respective art endeavors. It goes without saying for all of us — we never stop learning, and we're always open to expanding our thinking. We are always experimenting. What got me thinking about this was an observation about YouTube. 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.

HT2325 - Two Approaches There's an old joke that proposes that people have two distinct strategies about cooking dinner. Some decide what to eat and then go to the store to buy the ingredients. Others look in the fridge and cupboards to determine what they have already, then make a meal from that. Sounds pretty much like photography, don't you think? Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2324 - Distill With a Single Word Here's a useful exercise for before you click the shutter. Ask yourself what this picture is about. Distill your answer to a single word. Pick a word that doesn't simply name the subject, but rather one that expresses your response to the moment. This is not as easy as it sounds, but it is incredibly useful in clarifying how you might want to compose the image and which elements to emphasize or crop out of the frame. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2323 - We Should Call It Grayscale Photography It took me a decade or so in my youth to realize that the term "black and white photography" implied a mindset that had me pursuing the wrong strategies. I was so single-mindedly dedicated to achieving the maximum black and a pristine white that I failed to notice that the most important tones were in the middle. Achieving deep blacks and clean whites are important aspects of a monochromatic image, but the magic is always in the gray tones. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2322 - After the Social Gathering I find it common during a social gathering that the conversation winds around to a topic that motivates me to want to share some of my images or a project that pertains to the topic at hand. I've learned, however, that trying to share my artwork at such moments is not only futile but disruptive. Instead, I find it more productive to wait until the next day and to email a link to the work on my website. I've found that almost everyone will then look at the work — on their schedule, away from the social scene, where they can give it more attention and almost always respond back to me. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2321 - Proprietary RAW vs DNG I'm not a fan of proprietary file formats. It seems to me that they have a way of putting our content at risk. I'm not comfortable with that. Instead, I use the open source DNG format for my working images in my Lightroom catalog. I do keep, however, all the original RAW camera files on backup hard drives just in case a future generation DNG converter adds features that I might find useful. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2320 - Feedback During Processing Like all of my fellow Zone System photographers, I grew up and was trained with a foundational strategy known as pre-visualization. Since then, I've come to value the feedback available in digital processing as one of the core elements of a creative vision. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2319 - Adapting to the Possible I've mentioned before that in my twenties and thirties I was an avid backpacker. Most of my landscape photography from those days is from deep in the forest, way out from civilization, in the solitude of pristine nature. My backpacking days are long over, but my landscape photography still continues. My landscapes these days are often from the driver's seat of my truck. We adapt to what we can do or our art career ends. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

LW1462 - What and Why Are More Important Than Where Like many of you I suspect, I always look forward to travel photography when I have the time to do so. Now is the time of year when I start thinking about fall photography and start thinking about plans and locations. Every year I'm tempted to make the same mistake, thinking about where I want to photograph rather than what and why. It's so easy to be seduced by the popular destinations , but do I really need to photograph there? Again? Wanting to go somewhere fun and exotic to experience it is one thing, but doing so is not the same thing as wanting to make an artistic statement of some kind with our photography. Confusing these two runs the risk of degrading your photographic skill and efforts to the level of Xerox copy machine. "I was there and saw this" is not the same as "I felt this and want to share it with the world." 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.

HT2318 - Accumulating Momentum There's often an unobserved momentum that accumulates with project oriented photography that is absent from single image photography. Single image photography often includes a dichotomy that makes an image successful or not. In contrast, project oriented photography builds a certain momentum over the months and years as candidates accumulate and the project is evolving. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2317 - The Masters Are Better Than We Think It's difficult to truly and fully admire the work of a master photographer until we try to do it ourselves. I remember being highly impressed with a body of work done by Aaron Siskin that consisted of abstracts of road tar patterns on the highway. I found a stretch of road that was similarly repaired and thought I'd try my hand at his creative vision. My total failure increased my admiration of his work tremendously. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2316 - Photography and My Morning Coffee Routine I start every day, 7 days a week, with photography — and my morning cup of coffee. I find that first half hour or so when the house is quiet and I'm not fully awake to be an ideal time to think about photography, brainstorm projects, and even visualize specific images. I don't sit in front of my computer and work in Lightroom or Photoshop, but rather let my mind warm up to the day while I try to be aware of whatever creative impulses bubble up. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2315 - New Work Revitalizes Older Work There's an interesting phenomenon that I've observed now for a couple of decades. Every time I release a new issue of Kokoro, there is an upswing in downloads for previous issues. Of course, the current release is the volumetric winner in terms of downloads, but the accumulated downloads of back issues always exceeds the current release. In other words, publishing new work has a way of revitalizing older work. Plus, as the back catalog grows, the coattails effect increases dramatically. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2314 - The Fly in the Acrobat Ointment I love publishing PDFs for Acrobat for several reasons including cross platform compatibility (Mac, PC, tablet, etc.), layout integrity, typographic fidelity, and book-like pages. There is one drawback to PDFs, however, that is frustrating. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2313 - Anthologies As we all know, you can't please all the people all the time. This is one of the foundational philosophies behind the anthology nature in both LensWork and in my personal work published in Kokoro. The strategy here is that even though a reader might find any given project uninteresting, an anthology increases the possibility that each viewer will find something they like and appreciate. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2312 - Photo Vests For 50 years now I've had an on again, off again relationship with photo vests. I'll go through periods where I find them convenient, comfortable, and adequate, then periods when I find them too limiting. The real issue, obviously, is not the vest but rather the amount of gear I feel is necessary for me to do the work I want to do. That issue always leads me back to gear minimalism, and the search for the least possible gear needed. I'd long for the yesterdays of just a camera and that's it, but I've never experienced that. What is the minimum kit? Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

LW1461 - The Photo Game Is Changing An incredibly important part of artwork is the wonder of how it could possibly have been done. When that mystery is removed, what's left is considerably diminished, unremarkable, even common. I've seen this happen to photography in the last 50 years. What could make photography wonderful (full of wonder) 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.

HT2311 - The Quiet Light, Digitally John Sexton published a wonderful monograph of his work titled, The Quiet Light. His images glowed off the page. This effect was due to his extraordinary skill as a printer in combination with a side effect from reciprocity failure with gelatin silver film. It's wonderful aesthetic that was difficult to achieve but beautiful to behold. Now, with digital processing, it's a few clicks away and easy. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2310 - What You Might Do Someday WIt occurs to me that marketing camera gear is all about convincing you that your current gear is somehow inadequate. It also occurs to me that art making art is the revelation of the possible, that is to say, all art is made with the tools we have at hand. No one, of course, is going to run an expensive marketing campaign to show you all the things your current camera is fully capable of accomplishing. We have to remind ourselves of the incredible capabilities we hold in our hands. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2309 - A Nagging Sense of Guilt It's been over a year since my last publication of a new issue of Kokoro. I feel a sense of guilt about this. In that same time, I've release 400 Here's a Thought, 60 podcasts, 60 episodes of Finding the Picture, 5 issues of LensWork, and that doesn't count episodes of Looking at Images, Seeing in SIXES commentaries, or Trilogies commentaries. So why this nagging sense of guilt? The pressure to produce takes many forms. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

Removing Sharpness Most (but not all) images require a sharpness that has us searching for and treasuring tack sharp lenses. We shouldn't let that, however, determine our aesthetic decisions. We can always reduce sharpness from a sharp capture if needed, but we can't create more sharpness than the lens captures. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2307 - Memory Card Lifespan The other day I mentioned my search for new hard drives to replace my aging, 5-year old ones. I received an email from a listener who brought to mind another aspect I'd never thought about. He mentioned that the memory cards we use in our cameras also are subject to aging and should also be replaced every 5-10 years just like SSDs. I've used the same cards for over a decade. Time to do some more research and shopping. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2306 - Enough with the Vibrance Already The vibrance and saturation sliders are taking over the world. I use a Windows PC and every day when I fire up my computer, I'm confronted with and over-saturated landscape. This morning's abomination set a new record. I didn't realize it was possible to crank up the saturation control to 1,000, but it is. My concern is that if dialing up the saturation is a virtue, then its opposite (realistic or muted color) is becoming a sin. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!