LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process

Here's a Thought… #2789 with Brooks Jensen

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

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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Here's a Thought… #2787 with Brooks Jensen

Literature and music share a common technique that involves the unexpected surprise. In literature, it's the plot twist. In music, it's the dissonant chord. Try as I might, I can't think of a single example in photography that employees the same idea. How would we introduce the unexpected in a photo project? One color image in a book of black and white? One soft focus image when the rest are all tack sharp? And how would such a startling surprise in a photography project enhance the project? Maybe there's no answer to this, but sometimes asking these kinds of quirky questions opens up unexpected paths in our creative thinking.

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Here's a Thought… #2786 with Brooks Jensen

As much as I resist the pragmatics of calculating the cost in production of our art, it is necessary to consider the costs for many of us. This includes not just the production of our work but also the distribution of our work. Wouldn't it be lovely if we could produce 20" prints with abandon and mail them out to everyone we might want to gift a print? If we can't, we can at least devise a means of production and distribution that fits our budget.

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Episode #1528 from our long-running, weekly podcast
On Photography and the Creative Process

While Brooks is traveling this week, here is an audio recording of him reading the Editor's Comments from LensWork #44, originally published in Dec 2002. This audio is part of the archived of audio presentations of the Ediitor's Comments from the pages of LensWork that are available to members of LensWork Online.

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Every Picture Is a Compromise, a series at www.brooksjensenarts.com.

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Here's a Thought… #2785 with Brooks Jensen

One of the greatest challenges of my creative life has been the flip of mind that is required to shift from everyday mind to artmaking mind. They are different and mutually exclusive. I can't, for example, think about my art while paying the monthly bills. These two activities require a completely different way of processing their respective tasks. The art life question is always one of purposely and at will letting go of everyday mind and slipping into art mind. I've tried all kinds of techniques, but still cannot flip a mental switch to bring it about.

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Here's a Thought… #2784 with Brooks Jensen

So many photographer I talk to go to known destinations. I don't think it ever occurs to them that the destination is known because so many other photographers have been there before them! The great advantage of going down unknown roads is precisely that you have no idea what you will find there. It's the discovery of the unknown that gives photography its spice. I'd much rather discover some place on my own rather than follow in the footsteps of the herd.

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Here's a Thought… #2783 with Brooks Jensen

After all these years in photography, I still believe the best advice I ever received was "remove the unnecessary." I've often joked that Ansel Adams' most useful fool was a12-gauge shotgun to remove unwanted tree branches from the scene. I remember in an early Lens-Work workshop I had everyone take a picture that purposely had something they wanted to remove. That was followed by a demonstration on the use of Photoshop's Clone Tool. How quaint.

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Here's a Thought… #2782 with Brooks Jensen

The first people to see our latest work is probably our spouse, our family, our loved ones. Their encouragement is lovely, but is it trustworthy? I think what most of us want is an honest opinion and useful feedback. The least useful feedback we can ever receive is "I like it." If you want feedback from a loved one, it's best to have a conversation with them about the kinds of feedback that could be useful to you.

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Here's a Thought… #2781 with Brooks Jensen

Whatever happened to learning by doing, learning by trial and error, learning by falling flat on our face? Photographers no longer need to experiment. Whatever you might want to do to make an image, you can learn step-by-step with a YouTube video. That's wrong — you can choose from hundreds of videos! Is this a valuable resource or a thief that is robbing us of the very reason to be an artist? Cole Thompson has proposed the idea of "photographic celibacy." Is there a place for "tutorial celibacy?

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