Random Observations on Art, Photography, and the Creative Process.
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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 sequentially convinced each new piece of gear would provide the answer to making better photographs. You would think my faith in gear would subside with each disappointment, but it never does. That's how strong faith in gear is in photography.
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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 noise. Our job is artists is to brush away the noise, the obscuring dust, sometimes the verbosity in our mind. Photography is not so much about taking as it is about revealing.
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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 be a false promise. It's far too easy to equate new with better. My experience is that better pictures most often come from repeated visits and pushing past the new, past our first impressions.
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It's interesting to look back at the artists' statement included with many portfolios in LensWork. It's amazing how many times the photographer begins by saying they were doing something completely disconnected from photography when all of a sudden they saw something that created a sympathetic vibration with their creative soul. They grabbed their camera and interrupted daily life to make art.
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LW1500 - My Heartfelt Thanks, Again
On this day as we post a milestone with LensWork Podcast #1500, let me quote one of my favorite novelists, W. Sommerset Maugham. "I think few serious writers can be entirely indifferent to the fate that will befall their works after their death. It is pleasant to think, not that one may achieve immortality but that one may be read with interest by a few generations and find a place, however small, in the history of one's country's literature." All I can add to that is my heartfelt thanks to all of you are fellow travelers on this path of personally expressive photography. Can't wait to see what the future brings!
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Every Picture Is a Compromise, a series at www.brooksjensenarts.com.
and...
"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.
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If I really want to spend some time with an image to understand it, think about it, consider its implications and deeper message, I know going in that there is a limit to how many images I can connect with in a given sitting. Of course I can only speak with authority about my own experience. I know, from my Sunday morning book time, that I reach a limit at about a hundred images. More than that and my brain just locks up. Sometimes far fewer. I can scan quickly through more, but that always seems a bit of an insult to the artwork and the artist
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Consider one, two, or three. In geometry, one is a point, two is a line, three is a triangle. In photographic composition, one is a thing, two is relationship, and three is a movement. Which of these do you think makes a more interesting and dynamic viewing experience? Staring at a dot? Bouncing back and forth along the line? Or traveling in an almost circular movement?
This RSS feed includes only the most recent seven Here's a Thought episodes. All of them — over 2500 and counting! — are available to members of LensWork Online. Try a 30-day membership for only $10 and discover the literally terabytes of content about photography and the creative process.
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This morning I went to one of my favorite breakfast diners. While I was waiting for my food, I pulled out my phone to review a new PDF publication of photography. I simply could not do it due to the volume and bombardment of distracting noise. A loud radio, the conversation and laughter of the patrons, dishes clanking, cash register ringing, phones ringing, door chimes — I was drowning in an overload of the audible cacophony. Perhaps this is one of the reasons I dislike art gallery openings. The same can be said about web pages that pop up a never-ending stream of ads. Seeing artwork is best done in the quiet that allows us to connect with the work with the fewest distractions.
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