Random Observations on Art, Photography, and the Creative Process. These talks focus on the creative process in fine art photography. LensWork editor Brooks Jensen side-steps techno-talk and artspeak to offer a stimulating mix of ideas, experience, and observations from his 50 years as a fine art photographer, writer, and publisher. Topics include a wide range of subjects from finding subject matter to presenting your work, and building an audience. Included in this RSS Feed are the LensWork…
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Here's a Thought… #2721 with Brooks Jensen The Future of Photography He said, "It's a fantastic camera. It does everything for me." I responded, "Too bad it doesn't automatically post your images to Instagram." Excitedly, he replied, "That's coming!" I tried as best I could not to appear suicidal. I wonder if there is any way we could make photography way more difficult, on purpose? Outlaw prints…
Here's a Thought… #2720 with Brooks Jensen Purposely Off Awhile back, I made a landscape image in which I desaturated the naturally bright blue sky to an emotionally dark steel blue/gray. No sky ever looked that way in real life. I loved it in spite of the obvious fact that it wasn't true to human vision. Curiously enough, because it was so clearly an aesthetic choice, people seemed to be willing…
Here's a Thought… #2719 with Brooks Jensen Blade Runner and Puccini's Butterfly Do you ever go back and revise a previously finished image or project? I don't. Maybe I should. Sometimes, great artists do. For example, there are five different versions of Blade Runner , one of my favorite movies. Puccini made several substantial revisions of his opera, Madame Butterfly . Ansel Adams made a dozen or…
Here's a Thought… #2718 with Brooks Jensen Accessory Fever I cringe when I think about all the money I've spent on accessories that sounded like a great solution, then used only a time or two. Or, maybe never. I have a closet full of them. Why is it that the solution to better pictures always seems to rely on some new piece of gear? I suppose it's just easier to blame stuff (or the lack of stuff)…
Here's a Thought… #2717 with Brooks Jensen Too Many Notes, Words, Images I've often said that this is the best time in the history of photography to be a photographer. There is one sense in which this is clearly not true: audience attention spans . The instantaneous mindset of making photographs is leaking into the way we look at photographs — instantaneously. Social media are training all of us…
LW1518 - The Hard Work of Being an Artist The minute we pick up a camera and decide we want to make pictures more meaningful than snapshots, we unknowingly embrace the art life. The first challenge is entirely technical and, at least these days, fairly easily mastered. Well, if not mastered, at least doable with reasonable competence. That's when the hard work of being an artist begins. All…
Here's a Thought… #2716 with Brooks Jensen Fun Is a Medicine I assume that all of you listening to these commentaries take your photography pretty seriously. You want your photographs to be meaningful, lovely, treasured, valuable. We approach our image making with a serious mindset. Must we? What about fun? Silly? Playful? Not all of our work needs to be momentous. Make something small, fun,…
Here's a Thought… #2715 with Brooks Jensen The Power of Titles Titles have such power to steer the viewer in directions we intend. I've often used the example of Dorothea Lange's famous image, Migrant Mother . What if that image was instead titled, Waiting for the Return of the Soldier , for example? What if Weston's Pepper #30 was titled, The Last Pepper , or perhaps, Tina ? Words change…
Here's a Thought… #2714 with Brooks Jensen To Know a Photographer There are so many photographers I think I know because one of their images has become important to me. I'm a fool to think so. People are complicated; photographers are at least as complicated as people. (Ahem.) I've come to believe that in order to know a photographer even a little we need to study at least a couple dozen images or…
Here's a Thought… #2713 with Brooks Jensen An Excuse to Explore the World I'm pretty convinced that I don't need to add any more images to my Lightroom assets. I have enough RAW files in my catalogue to keep myself artistically busy and productive for the rest of my life. I just need to mine deeper into what I already have. That will not, however, prevent me from heading out and capturing more.…
Here's a Thought… #2712 with Brooks Jensen Why the Sharpest Lenses I've always thought that spending money on the best lenses made more sense than expensive cameras. A blurry picture can always be made with a tack-sharp lens, but a tack-sharp image cannot be made with a fuzzy lens. By the way, how do you know if your lens is sharp? Which apertures? Which focal lengths? You do know, don't you, that…
Here's a Thought… #2711 with Brooks Jensen One Kind of Photography You know that old business about what books you would want with you on a desert island? Just for fun, if you could only make one kind of photograph for the rest of your life, what would you choose? Landscapes? Portraits? Still life? Wildlife? I think I'd choose abstracts. I could make abstracts anywhere, anytime, with any subjects,…
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…
