LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process

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!

HT2305 - It Truly Makes No Difference I was putting together a new project for the next issue of Kokoro when I realized that the 15 images in the final edit came out of 14 different cameras. Looking at the images, I would never be able to identify the camera without referring to the metadata. The lesson? You already own a sufficient camera, no matter what camera you own. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

LW1460 - What Makes a Photograph Special I'm seriously concerned that photography has become too easy. Craft is no longer a serious virtue. Because it has become so easy, it is losing its sense of being special. This is particularly true for fine art photography. What, today, makes a photograph special? 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.

HT2304 - Tablets vs Phones With each issue of LensWork, we make a tablet edition for those who prefer the convenience of a digital publication. I suspect most people don't use a tablet for the tablet edition; they use a smart phone. That is, they view a 2¼x3¼" image rather than a 7x8" image. Should we care? Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2303 - Limited Edition, um, Cheerios What do your photographs and Honey Nut Cheerios® have in common? They are both produced in a limited edition, that is, according to the cereal box I was reading this morning at breakfast. Surprisingly, that didn't make the Cheerios more valuable. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2302 - How the Work Gets Done I've heard the art making process on occasion described as taking dictation from God. It's as though the artwork is completely formed before we begin producing it and all we have to do is execute the craft. I've never had that experience. Instead, for me, I have to begin the process of art making before I know where the conclusion Will lead me. I have to have faith in the process. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2301 - Real World Corner Sharpness A while back, I purchased a new lens and needed to give it a good test to see how it performs. The most difficult areas for most lenses are the corners. The corners on this new lens were a little soft, so I set out to compare that to my very best, super-sharp lens. The tests gave one result, but the real world suggested a different result. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

HT2300 - Pounce, With the Patience of a Cat We are babysitting some cats this week and I've been watching how fascinated and patient they are watching the bird feeder just outside the living room window. They sit for hours watching, hardly moving. Then, when the opportunity arises, you can see they just want to pounce but for the window between them and their target. Watching them reminded me of advice from David Hearn, the MAGNUM photographer Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!

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!