LensWork – Photography and the Creative Process

Here's a Thought… #2804 with Brooks Jensen

Abstracts Are the Answer

After all these years, I still contend that abstracts are my favorite genre of photography. Of course they don't sell. No one likes them. You can't even give them away. They do, however, have three virtues that cannot be denied They connect with their creator deeply; they can be found and photographed everywhere; and the viewers' interpretation is always right.

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Here's a Thought… #2803 with Brooks Jensen

When Capture Meets Culture

I must admit, I find this observation fascinating. There's not a damn thing I can do about it, but it is interesting. Today's technology has made it possible for us to produce trillions of photographs a year while simultaneously promoting the swipe left culture that affords each image a tiny fraction of a second for comprehension and understanding. Do these two trends feed each other? Knowing the waning attention span of audiences, what are the implications for the thousands of images we have in our Lightroom catalogs?

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Here's a Thought… #2802 with Brooks Jensen

Convergence

When I think of "The Art World," I think of galleries and museums, auctions and fortunes, celebrity artists and a measure of fame. That world happens at a point of convergence that most of us will never know or experience — where Creativity meets Commerce. Our world is one of art with a different sort of convergence. For us, Art is a matter of vision and compulsion, strife and creation, breath and Life. I've never met an artist who wouldn't say that while creating their artwork they feel more alive.

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Here's a Thought… #2801 with Brooks Jensen

Beware the Advice That Stifles

One of my earliest examples of thinking outside the box involved five images matted in a single mat. I thought it was innovative and expressive. My well-meaning peers crushed this experiment and I never pursued it. Years later I tried black mat boards with the same discouragement. Feedback can be helpful, but it can also negatively influence your creative impulses.

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Episode #1530 from our long-running, weekly podcast
On Photography and the Creative Process

Why I Prefer Projects

Words alone cannot tell a story until they are organized into sentences and paragraphs. Said another way, groups of words make much more powerful expressions than words could ever do without the power of sentences and paragraphs. Similarly, individual pictures can be wonderful, but when they contribute to a larger whole by being part of a project they feel more capable of personal expression than the individual, standalone image.

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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.

Here's a Thought… #2800 with Brooks Jensen

Lawn Chairs and Other Photographic Necessities

The older I get and the longer I practice photography the more I'm convinced that photographs find us. Chasing photographs is a fine idea in our youth when burning off excess energy is a virtue. I have discovered, however, that chasing photographs is not the best strategy, at least not for me, and my aging knees concur. The older I get the more I see that it's not taking photos nor even making photos. The key is allowing photos to reveal themselves to us.

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Here's a Thought… #2799 with Brooks Jensen

The Field of Search

You've managed to carve a little time from your busy schedule and have an opportunity to do photography. Where do you search for your next photograph? In The Great outdoors? On a busy urban street? In your still life studio? Or could it possibly be waiting to be discovered in your Lightroom catalog?

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Here's a Thought… #2798 with Brooks Jensen

Art That Is Not Pretty

In this week's podcast, I was bemoaning the overload of pretty pictures we are surrounded with these days. A logical question then becomes What is an artistic photograph that isn't pretty? I think this question gets right to the heart of personally expressive photography.

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Here's a Thought… #2797 with Brooks Jensen

Artmaking Is Problem-Solving

I have a daughter who loves puzzles. Watching her attack a puzzle reminds me of the process I engage when working on art. The end can often be visualized, but the means to get there cannot. That could almost be the definition of a puzzle. To reach the end requires innumerable steps almost all of which are essentially trial and error, or perhaps I should say "educated and deduced guess" followed by new understanding which leads to another educated guess. We sneak up on the answer rather than pouncing on it.

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Here's a Thought… #2796 with Brooks Jensen

Drive-by Misses

The other day I was talking about my preference for base camp shooting rather than incessant travel. We've now been on the road for a month and I hate to think of how many things we've driven by that appealed to me photographically but were impossible to access because we're pulling the trailer. These drive-by misses are almost painful.

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Here's a Thought… #2795 with Brooks Jensen

Megapixels versus Paper and Ink

Some of you have unlimited budgets and can skip this thought. The rest of us have decisions to make. Do you buy expensive, high megapixel cameras that leave a smaller budget for paper and inks? Or, do you choose a moderately priced camera that allows a more generous budget for prints, better lenses, travel, faster computers, etc.? More lotto tickets is not the answer.

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Here's a Thought… #2794 with Brooks Jensen

A Visible Difference

The jump from 35mm to 8x10 is immediately visible. Because of this, photographers with roots in film axiomatically believe that bigger is better. By extension, 60 megapixel cameras are better than 20. But is that true? Is it a visibly true?

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Episode #1529 from our long-running, weekly podcast
On Photography and the Creative Process

Pretty Picture Overload

Maybe I'm just feeling ornery these days. I find I'm becoming less and less impressed with pretty pictures. Sometimes it feels like we are being bombarded from all sides with lovely images from every source. Exotic locations, idyllic scenes, super-saturated colors — it leaves me feeling a bit numb. Once we've eaten an entire cake, it would probably not be surprising if we don't want more dessert. Crescendo after crescendo after crescendo makes the music dull.

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.

Here's a Thought… #2793 with Brooks Jensen

When the Project Picks You

I'll readily confess that most of my best projects are not preplanned, purpose driven, and not the result of conscious searching. I stumble upon them. They whisper in my ear. They hesitatingly reveal themselves. They are less a declaration that commands me and more an invitation that seduces me. They arrive as a hint, a glimpse in the corner of my eye, a question that often begins, What if?

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Here's a Thought… #2792 with Brooks Jensen

We Engineer-Artists

One of the things that fascinates me about photography is that it lies at the perfect inflection point between technology and creative vision. I love the science of mixing darkroom chemistry or mastering software and computing. The engineer in me thrills at the challenge, and the sense of accomplishment from mastering a technology is undeniable. That said, it is the artistic challenge of self-expression that provides the motivation and reward for all the effort.

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Here's a Thought… #2791 with Brooks Jensen

Prevent a Disaster

Photographers spend a lot of time thinking about how to be successful with their images, their projects, their art life. Might I suggest that another fruitful area of thought is to anticipate how to prevent disasters. For example, my first trip to China I took a second identical camera body with me just in case my main camera failed. I always have a wrist strap attached to my camera in case I lose my grip. Every night I recharge all my batteries so that I start each day with a full load of power. Backup memory cards and hard drives. Rain protection even on the sunny days. Offloading the day's images to another memory device as a backup.

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Here's a Thought… #2790 with Brooks Jensen

Lessons That Last a Lifetime

Years ago I used to subscribe to Popular Photography, Modern Photography, and PC Magazine. I kept them all on my bookshelves as reference material. But equipment changes and gear reviews fall out of date. With the passage of years I realized the information in those magazines were no longer pertinent to my creative life. This is precisely why LensWork, my podcast, the daily Here's a Thought, and all the other content at LensWork Online concentrate on lessons that last a lifetime. Creativity today asks the same questions as 33 years ago when we started LensWork. The challenges of art making are timeless.

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Here's a Thought… #2789 with Brooks Jensen

One Place Well

Travel photography is surely an interesting way to take our camera out into the world. I've done a lot of travel photography and I always enjoy it. But over the years I've learned that there are two distinct approaches to travel photography that are mutually exclusive. The first kind is to constantly be on the move, looking for new locations, traveling miles and miles in a grand search. The other kind, which I've come to favor without a contest, is to establish a base camp somewhere and really work that single location for days or weeks at a time. This latter technique always ends up with better images, more depth. and curiously enough more interesting experiences.

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Here's a Thought… #2788 with Brooks Jensen

Two Kinds of Archives

Here is a self-observation that I'm wondering if others have, too. When I look through my past production and my archives, I find I have two kinds of images. There are those who have worn well over the years about which I'm still excited and proud. And then there are those that have not worn well with the passage of time and find I've become ambivalent about or perhaps even loathe. Isn't it interesting how are opinions change over time?

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