LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process

Here's a Thought… #2779 with Brooks Jensen Looking for Solutions, Not Gear The other day I was talking about the use of Polaroids in the field and more recently LCD screens to overcome my limitations in seeing two-dimensionally. A podcast listener, Howard Lester, emailed an alternative. His suggestion was more brilliant than I first understood. He suggested just closing one eye. It never occurred...

Here's a Thought… #2778 with Brooks Jensen Photographs Themselves Are Symbols Yesterday I was talking about how we think and feel in symbols. Of course the important topic I left out was the fact that photographs themselves are symbols. When we are waiting in the doctor's office and see that beautiful landscape hanging on the wall in the waiting room, we're not actually looking at the landscape bu...

Here's a Thought… #2777 with Brooks Jensen Everything Is Symbolic One of the things that separates humans from animals is that we think in terms of symbols, culturally defined associations, and abstracts. There is a school of thought from mid-20th century photography that emphasizes photographing "the thing itself." I understand the intent, but it's never made sense to me because it fights the nat...

Here's a Thought… #2776 with Brooks Jensen Cluster Mode Photography I interviewed David Hurn (MAGNUM) when we published him in LensWork and was fascinated by his description of Magnum photography. I'll abbreviate his technique: 95% of being out photographing is not photographing. The way he described it was that Magnum photographers spend almost all of their time just looking, observing, being the...

Here's a Thought… #2775 with Brooks Jensen A Timed Event At the suggestion of a friend years ago, I experimented with photography as a timed event. I was driving through Eastern Oregon and the challenge was to stop every hour on the hour without fail. Wherever I was, I had to get out of the car and make a photograph within 15 minutes. Instead of picking and choosing my photographic locations based...

Here's a Thought… #2774 with Brooks Jensen Plein-air Photoshop You're familiar with plein air painting, that open air approach to painting at the scene, in the environment, outside the four walls of the painters studio. Why can't we do that? How different would our pictures be if we were to process them at the scene, in Photoshop, with the subject still before us? Normal photo processing takes pla...

Here's a Thought… #2773 with Brooks Jensen Twelve For Six I continue to have all kinds of fun doing Seeing In SIXES projects. I've been doing them long enough now that I'm starting to see certain patterns emerge that help the process. For example, when I try to produce a Seeing In SIXES project I'd better have more than six candidates to choose from. I don't need a hundred, but the editing/selecti...

Here's a Thought… #2772 with Brooks Jensen That Special Travel Feeling Why is it that travel seems to precipitate a heighten sense of excitement to photograph that is missing from our home or daily routines? Is it simply that we are trying "to take it all in" while traveling? If so, can we purposely develop that "take it all in" attitude at will? At home? After all, a visitor from some distant lan...

Here's a Thought… #2771 with Brooks Jensen Your Work and Ansel Adams I've said for a long time now that the most influential attribute of a work of art is the signature of the artist. That is, a very bad Ansel Adams print will be more valuable than our best. Of course, the mental trap in that thought is the equating of fame/value and merit. I would unhesitatingly say that many of your photographs...

Here's a Thought… #2770 with Brooks Jensen Yes, Seagulls There are some subject clichés that are so cliché they become uber clichés. I would be willing to bet that every one of you have a photograph of a seagull in your archives that you've never shown to anyone because, well, it's a picture of a seagull. Does that mean seagulls are overtly non-photogenic? Or does it mean that they are inherently...

Here's a Thought… #2769 with Brooks Jensen My Favorite Dead Fish Picture One of my favorite pictures from 50 years of photography was photographed in a rural village in Japan. Outside the fish market was a little stand that included 60 or 70 herring splayed out to dry. There's shiny bodies were fantastic and led to one of my all-time favorite photographs. I have it hanging in the trailer. I'm abou...

Here's a Thought… #2768 with Brooks Jensen Clouds and No Clouds Looking through our archives at all our previous work can uncover some of the most interesting things we might never see otherwise. A while back I had a revelation about clouds. It seems that for unknown and unconscious reasons, when there are beautiful puffy clouds in the sky casting intermittent shadows and sunbeams on the land, I t...

Here's a Thought… #2767 with Brooks Jensen Performative Photography I don't think many people would think of photography as a performative art medium. Could it be? What would that look like? The closest thing I can imagine to a performative presentation of photographs would maybe be a slideshow. What about a presentation of images on a large screen TV that could possibly be accompanied by a narrat...

Here's a Thought… #2766 with Brooks Jensen From Whence the Inspiration There are photographers who prefer not to view the work of other photographers. I understand the concept, but I can't help but wonder what they are missing? Do they also not listen to music, read novels or poetry? Watch films or talk with others? I've always thought of art as a Grand Conversation, a conversation that spans time...

Here's a Thought… #2765 with Brooks Jensen Way to Go, God When does a scene/subject become worthy of making a photograph? After all, we don't just point our cameras at anything, but we pick and choose those scenes or subjects that we think are worthy of capture and processing. Why are those captures worthy? I've asked this question for years in workshops and conversations. The most common reason p...

Here's a Thought… #2764 with Brooks Jensen Archive or Burden We spend our life amassing a pile of prints that form our archive. It can also be said that our archive is a burden that our heirs will be responsible for whether or not they want it. We can't take it with us, unless the software engineers figure out a solution to this pesky problem of mortality. Maybe we should be buried with all our ar...

Here's a Thought… #2763 with Brooks Jensen Visual Syncopation Structure in a presentation of images can be both good and bad. Structure can provide form and consistency to a presentation. It can also become predictable, repetitious, and boring. This where visual syncopation can come to the rescue. Become a member of LensWork Online and have access to all 2700+ Here's a Thought… commentaries.

Here's a Thought… #2762 with Brooks Jensen Understanding Fatigue and Exhaustion There are times when I try to go photographing in spite of feeling exhausted. It never works. This week is one of those times. I just can't bring myself to get excited about grabbing my camera and getting out there. Worse, I feel guilty about it. As I've thought about this in the torpor of my fatigue, I think I've had...

Here's a Thought… #2761 with Brooks Jensen The Immersive Challenge We all have art we love and art that leaves us cold. In thinking about my own responses to artwork, I've come to the conclusion that the artwork I like the most are those pieces that create in me the largest immersive response by pulling me into the world that the artwork makes for us. This is, for example, where the novelist has s...

Here's a Thought… #2760 with Brooks Jensen The Cynic in Me This is the best time in the history of photography to be a photographer. That said, the cynic in me can't help but worry about the future of photography as an art medium. Because it has become so easy to make a technical stunning photograph, I wonder if the mystery in the craft has disappeared? If it's easy and everyone can do it well, is...

Here's a Thought… #2759 with Brooks Jensen Not ETTR, but ZJSOTR I'm sure you have all heard the advice, "Expose to the Right." In theory, that's well-founded reasoning and advice. In practice, I've found ETTR a bit impractical and prefer a more pragmatic strategy ZJSOTR — Zebras Just Short of the Right. This is even more true here in the age of AI Noise Reduction of our RAW files. Become a member...

Here's a Thought… #2758 with Brooks Jensen Forgotten Masters With the passage of time, it's natural that some artists become more valued and others fade from popularity. If this happened to Bach, why would it not also occur in photography? These days, I almost never hear anyone mention Diane Arbus, Aaron Siskind, Barbara Crane, William Garnett, Linda Connor, August Sander, Art Sinsabaugh, Ralph Eu...

Episode #1524 from our long-running, weekly podcast On Photography and the Creative Process Photography as an Art Medium Of late, I've experienced a number of well-meaning friends who insist on showing me what and where I should photograph. I know their heart is in the right place, but I also know that they do not understand the creative process. That's too harsh. They do not understand my creativ...

Here's a Thought… #2757 with Brooks Jensen Entering the Creative Bubble The world of athletics can be divided into two different sets of action. There is the preliminary part of preparation. Then there is the performative part of the competition. I think this provides a useful metaphor for photography and points out an interesting idea about preparation. When I'm out with my camera, my goal is to...

Here's a Thought… #2756 with Brooks Jensen Too Much Salt Spoils the Food Not long ago we tried a new Italian restaurant, just for fun. I ordered eggplant parmesan. Is there anything worse than bland, tasteless Italian food? Of course, I couldn't help but compare this to photography. What do we want in food — or a photograph? Intensity, a sensual thrill, a memorable experience, a good time, a sense...