I suppose all of us have, from time to time, been mesmerized by a piece of artwork. It grabs us, it seduces our attention, it fills our consciousness. Why? What is it about a piece of artwork that gives it this power to influence us so deeply? Maybe not 100% of the time, but most frequently I find this happens when the artwork engages my imagination, when it allows me to drop my normal awareness of the world and to be transported to a world of its making.

HT1891 - Grabbed by Artwork

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 Podcasts — posted weekly, typically 10-20 minutes exploring a topic a bit more deeply — and our almost daily Here's a thought… audios (extracted from the videos.) Here's a thought… are snippets, fragments, morsels, and tidbits from Brooks' fertile (and sometimes swiss-cheesy) brain. Usually just a minute or two. Always about photography and the art life.
Brooks Jensen is the publisher of LensWork, one of the world's most respected and award-winning photography publications, known for its museum-book quality printing and luxurious design. LensWork has subscribers in over 73 countries. He is the author of 13 books on photography and the creative life -- the latest books are The Best of the LensWork Interviews (2016), Photography, Art, and Media (2016), and the four annual volumes of Seeing in SIXES (2016-2019).

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I believe there are three miracles of human invention that continue to amaze me that they even exist at all. These are language and writing (books), the aural arts (music, recordings), and the visual arts (painting, photography). Through writing we can know what Sophocles thought millennia ago; through audio recordings we can hear what our grandparents sounded like; and via photography we can see the world that no longer exists.

HT1915 - Three Miracles

Finishing a photography project has multiple rewards not least of which is the manifestation of the artwork we produce. However, perhaps the most important thing we gain by finishing a project is what we learn in the process. Each project is a teacher as well as a culmination of our efforts.

HT1914 - Learning from Each Project We Complete

I know we can make a picture in 1/60th of a second, but should we? We've recently seen cameras introduced to the market that allow you to upload an image to your social media account instantaneously after clicking the shutter. Doesn't this completely miss one of the most important aspects of fine art photography?

HT1913 - Why Think Deeply When You Can Think Instantly

I've been doing and thinking about project-oriented photography for so long that it's become a reflex for me to search the interstices between pictures for threads that connect them together. Looking through some photography books recently, I realized I was doing that reflexively when in fact there was no thread between the pictures, at least not one intended by the photographer.

HT1912 - Searching the Interstices

This week Panasonic introduced a new camera that incorporates wide variety of picture styles that can be instantly applied in camera. These styles go by the technical name of LUT, an acronym for lookup table. Supposedly this will make your photographs more artistic. I'm not so sure.

HT1891 - Grabbed by Artwork

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