LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process

A photograph most naturally answers the question WHAT. Titles most frequently tell us WHERE and WHEN. Bad artist statements explain HOW. That leaves the most important question WHY— which is almost never answered.

Artmaking requires faith, often with no evidence to support it.

I was recently watching a lens review on YouTube in which the very capable reviewer was demonstrating the extraordinary shallow depth of field possible with the lens under discussion. There were examples showing the depth of field at f/1.7 versus f/2.8. No question there was a difference, but the difference didn't change the content of the photograph one wit. An important part of the creative life is to avoid the rabbit holes that suck us down into minutiae that doesn't matter.

I have some concern that the younger generations thinks about photography so differently than previous generations that something will be lost that we've worked so hard to build: the sense that photography is a fine art medium.

For several years my Holy Trinity of lenses did not have overlapping focal lengths. I had a 7 to 14, 12 to 35, and a 35 to 100. Because there were no overlapping focal lengths this necessitated a lot of lens swaps in the field. My current set has an 8 to 18, 12 to 60, and 50 to 200 which require a lot fewer lens changes. This is good. In fact, it was one of the primary reasons I had for making the changes.

To Wynn Bullock, Paul Strand and Minor White, we are the younger generation. We keep their work alive because we remember it and treasure it. We wanted to emulate it. Will today's younger generation revere our work, our aesthetic, our pursuit of the fine print? Or will our generation of photographers be forgotten in the age of Instagram and social media?

When working on a project, I'll often Begin by simply gathering images into a Lightroom collection. From there I'll move on to processing each of those images as seems best. But the final step is to take the processing that best fits the project idea and applying it to all the images that have been gathered. Sometimes this eliminates certain images from the project.

For most of my photographic life I thought in terms of images. My efforts were aimed precisely at making a terrific image — a solitary, standalone, single image. But for the last 20 years I've been thinking more and more in terms of projects and I find that requires a fundamental shift in thinking patterns.

I wonder if any of you have, like I have, wondered why we produce so many mediocre photographs. And even more interesting is the question about those ones that are so significantly better than our average. What is different about those images that are so much better than our average ones?

I've always approached post-processing with a fairly light hand. I tend not to work on images to an excessive amount, but I've learned I might be wrong in that. I've discovered a number of images that were pretty mediocre out of the camera but I've been able to cajole them into something much more interesting with some rather extreme processing. The strategy might resurrect a lot of images I given up on with a lighter touch.

One of the curious things I've discovered about producing small projects which I then publish in my personal PDFs titled Kokoro, is that by continually working on small projects, it helps me keep momentum flowing in my creative life.

I've been feeling a bit guilty because I haven't been out with the camera as much as I'd hoped. Then again, which is more important to me right now, more image captures, or producing more finished artwork from the images I already have in my Lightroom catalog?

Of all the tools at the disposal of photographers, I believe none is as valuable as curiosity. My photographic career is almost defined by the question "I wonder what's down this road?"

I recently received a junk email advising me that they could teach me everything I needed to know to start a successful podcast. They wanted to sell me a microphone and all the necessary accessories, a tutorial on registering domain names and generating RSS feeds, etc. Nowhere did it mention anything about content. This reminded me of so many photography tutorials I see.

Let's talk about the "oldephant" in the living room. You might be interested in . . . "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. LensWork Online includes hundreds of hours of audio, video, and downloadable content - literally terabytes of content, content, and more content. All 1200+ of Brooks Jensen's podcasts, the complete Here's a Thought... video library, Looking at Images commentaries, Creative Labs and new channels for 2020 including Finding the Picture and Those Who Inspire Me and Why. We add new content literally every day. You can learn more about memberships to LensWork Online at www.lenswork.com. And don't forget that all members can download the digital versions of LensWork for your tablet or computer. The most content-rich resource for ideas and inspiration you'll find anywhere on the Internet.