LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process
Kanalaren Xehetasunak
LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process
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 ph...
Atal Berriak
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HT2619 - A Recitation of Locations
Last fall I attended a lecture where a photographer, by projecting on a screen, shared a parade of hundred images or so with the audience. It was so c...
LW1505 - From One to Many
I'm often asked how I develop a multiple-image project. There are probably dozens of ways this could be done, but the most common way a project is bor...
HT2618 - Print as Affirmation
As we wander through life, we see something that prompts us to make a photograph. Why? That mystery requires confirmation. Did we see what we thought...
HT2617 - Battling with the Real World
The problem with photography from a creative medium point of view is that it too successfully allows us to make pictures that show what the world look...
HT2616 - My Serious Camera
A troubling mindset that I have difficulty discarding is that I think of my gear as either serious or, well, not. With my serious camera, I work more...
HT2615 - Beyond Place or Moment
You may recall my Editor's Comments in LensWork #173, Projects as Wall Art. I have another observation about this that I missed until recently. An ima...
HT2614 - What You Should Do
Perhaps there is no deadlier advice from a workshop instructor, mentor, or master photographer, than their statement about what you should do with you...
HT2613 - My Favorite Lightroom Tool Is...
I haven't counted, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn there's about a gazillion tools in Lightroom that can help us refine and finesse our images. S...
HT2612 - Photography and the Visual Arts
One of the biggest mistakes of my youth was focusing my efforts exclusively on photography and ignoring the other visual arts. By defining myself so n...
LW1504 - Photo Groups
I miss the dialogue of a group. An incredibly important part of my personal growth as a photographer came as the result of my participation in a group...
HT2611 - My Medium Is Better Than Yours
The word "photography" is an umbrella term that includes dozens of different means of manifestation and distribution of an image. From daguerreotypes...
HT2610 - There Will Always Be One More Tweak
Pablo Picasso famously said that the trick in painting is knowing when to stop. I think this is true in photography as well. There will always be one...
HT2609 - Creativity Is a Private, Personal Thing
Maybe I'm just stubbornly resistant, but I find I simply cannot get excited about suggestions from other people about what I should photograph or how...
HT2608 - Embracing the Pause
I've learned over the years that I can't be creative all the time. I used to feel guilty about the pause between creative outbursts. I eventually came...
HT2607 - Better by What Standards
With today's powerful digital processing, we can easily remove any element of a captured image. Doing so will make our artwork better, right? Doesn't...
HT2606 - The Trendline of Photography
In the early years of the 20th century, photography struggled to establish its reputation as a medium for artistic expression. As a medium, it gained...
HT2605 - What Is vs What Becomes
The fundamental characteristic of photography is that it shows us what is, the instant that is. This differs so dramatically from performance arts whe...
LW1503 - Nurturing Your Creative Impulse
I would bet that a significant number of photographers would claim their most valuable tool is their camera. I would propose your most valuable tool i...
HT2604 - Bigger Than Real Life
The very first print I ever sold as a young photographer was an image of a 1-in mushroom cap that I printed to 16x20". I didn't realize at the time wh...
HT2603 - Our Digital Files and Our Mortality
Our generation is facing a very strange conundrum, at least strange compared to previous generations of photographers. They may have left their negati...
HT2602 - Stop Stockpiling Skills and Start Doing
The problem with learning new tools is that it can be so abstract and intellectual. Sure, it's handy to have some photographic technique in your tool...
HT2601 - Where to Spend Your Money
Looking back, I cringe when I think how much money I've spent on cameras and assorted accessories. I wish someone had told me, in my youth, to spend m...
HT2600 - Photoshop Has Become Too Damn Complicated
I know many photographers who think that Photoshop is the cat's meow of digital processing. I'm not one of them. For me, the engineers have taken the...
HT2599 - Consuming With Repetition
When I view artwork (music, a novel, a painting, a photograph) for the first time, it almost never sticks. That is, I don't find I can remember its de...
HT2598 - Predictability
In a chess game, what happens when both players see the inevitability of the outcome? They throw in the towel and quit the game. I feel that way about...
LW1502 - Being Immersed in the World of a Photograph
The photography I tend to love best is when I find myself immersed in the world of the photograph rather than just shown an instant in time. Think of...
HT2597 - Duane Michals and the Question
One of the reasons I love Duane Michals' work is because it's so different than so much of photography. Most photographers use the medium to make a st...
HT2596 - Deepening Over Time
Yesterday we announced the LensWork Complete Digital Back Issue Collection and that has us looking back at all the portfolios we've published since Le...
HT2595 - Memorable Images
I've probably seen tens of thousands of photographs in my life, maybe more. I suspect there's a hundred or two that I can remember and bring forth in...
HT2594 - You Will Likely Never Know
Wynn Bullock will never know the impact his artwork has made in my life, but I can unhesitatingly say that his artwork set me on a 50-year trajectory...
HT2593 - Mindlessness
It may seem silly to insist that images of a mind of their own, but just pretend with me for a few minutes of experimentation. Pull up an image in Lig...
HT2592 - That Which Is Not Media
We cannot have art without some medium of expression. That said, what makes art important, meaningful, valuable, and memorable are the elements which...
HT2591 - The Thrill of Discovery
We've all experienced the thrill of discovering a new subject, location, or artist previously unknown to us. I distinctly remember, after having been...
LW1501 - If Not Now, When?
I've been involved with photography long enough to watch a number of my friends and LensWork-published photographers pass on to that eternal darkroom...
HT2590 - Searching For the Thread That Binds
There is a considerable difference between making a single, standalone, spectacular image as compared to working a project. For me, a large part of pr...
HT2589 - The Value of Limits
Perhaps you've heard that great Orson Welles quote that "The absence of limitations is the enemy of art." I think he's right, and I say this because o...
HT2588 - A Problem with Big
What do the following have in common? War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, The Ring by Richard Wagner, running a marathon, and a 60-inch photographic print?...
HT2587 - In Gear We Trust
During my 50 years in photography, I've owned 24 different cameras. I can assure you that with each new camera my hopes and aspirations rose as I was...
HT2586 - The Data Hidden in the Noise
We click the shutter because there's something there. We feel it, we sense it, we may not be able to describe it, but there is data hidden in the nois...
HT2585 - New Is Not Necessarily a Virtue
Photographers tend to get very excited about everything new. New gear, new techniques, new locations, new venues. The problem with new is that it can...