The Mindful Lens

Making Art or Chopping Wood?

Brooks Jensen, editor of LensWork Publishing has recently had a great series of podcasts from his current photography trip to Japan and they all warrant a listen. One in particular really gave me pause to think and look at how I shoot. Jensen discusses the idea that when we are in the field with our camera, we are not making art. Art making happens once we get back home during post-production, printing, and seeing how the images fit in a series. When we're in the field shooting, we should think about it as gathering the raw materials to make our art with at a later time, i.e. 'chopping wood'. 

The more I thought about this, the more it makes sense. While I still think we should be looking through the lens with a certain amount of pre-visualization towards a finished piece, I believe it's possible that spending too much time with this can be counterproductive. As I keep mentioning, being in the flow and really Seeing your subject is crucial to creating a worthwhile image. If we spend too much time worrying about what we're going to do later, it will take away from being in the now. 

Now i'm not saying you should shoot recklessly without forethought. Not much to learn by doing that. Take time to purposefully adjust your aperture and exposure and to change the framing. Look at your subject from different angles. Gather as much raw material as you can so that when it's time to get down to the business of creating art, you've got lots of arrows in your quiver. 

On a recent trip to Yellowstone with my Brother, I didn't have time to do a whole lot of pre-visualizing while we were hiking. He's not a photographer and I didn't want to slow things to a crawl as I worked every shot for 10 minutes. I shot rapidly, but with purpose. Because I didn't spend too much time thinking about the end result, I feel that I ended up with a lot more quality images to work with back at home when I could analyze them more objectively. 

Looking at the two images below, the top one is the original shot I took of a small geyser. I think if I had thought about it too much, I might have moved on as it initially didn't look too interesting to me. I wasn't able to pre-visualize the bottom image which is what I ended up with after some quick work in Lightroom. By simply shooting purposefully with an open mind, I was able to end up with an image I was happy with, one I might not have otherwise captured.

 

 
 

Does Pepper #30 Represent All Peppers?

An interesting take on the differences between color and black and white photography on the LensWork podcast entitled "Color and the Specific Thing." From Brooks' perspective, color photography is very specific while B/W is much more nuanced, interpretive, and representative of a larger whole. "Where color allows the photographer to say something about a man, the same image in black and white says something about mankind."

It's an idea worth pondering. For myself even more so as I generally think of myself as someone who's more interpretive, who sees life in shades of gray instead of black and white. Interesting then that I gravitate towards the specificity of color photography. I'm sure I'm not the only person to fit that juxtaposition. 

Let's really go down the rabbit hole with this for a minute. Does it mean anything if your worldview differs from your photographic style? Can the two successfully coexist if they are at odds? Can that creative tension be a source of inspiration or does it reveal a lack of cohesion in your work that others will pick up on?

You can listen to the entire podcast here or here and come to your own conclusions.

Perfection: Friend or Foe

I was Iistening to another LensWork podcast entitled "The Devil and the Details". In it, Brooks Jensen proposes that the tiniest flaw can take away from the overall impression of an otherwise perfect art project (photo collection, book, etc.). 

At first I found myself in complete agreement. I've found myself applying that same idea to my own work. Unfortunately, maybe too much so to the point of being a detriment. As I've learned more and more about post-processing in Photoshop, Capture NX, and Lightroom over the years, I find myself wanting to tweak all sorts of things, just because I could.

The problem is that many times, after spending an hour or two on an image, it still didn't feel finished. I'd simply file it away as something I would get back to later. Fast forward 5-10 years and I've probably got more of those 'unfinished' images than I even realize. 

After going out for an early-morning shoot this past Sunday, I was feeling good about what I captured and got right down to business processing the images. In about 45 minutes I managed to get 4 or 5 images I was pretty happy with. Were they absolutely perfect? No, of course not. But maybe that's not the point. A little RAW processing, some quick curves adjustments and masks, a bit of selective sharpening, and that was that. I'd have to say it was actually freeing not to be tied to the software in an effort to reach perfection. I also realized that I didn't mind posting them for others to see in their not-completely-perfect state either. 

So, what to get out of all of this? I'm not sure. Maybe perfectionism has it's place, but it's not a place where we need to live all the time with our art. Depending on the audience and the format, maybe a few flaws are ok if they're not glaring. Or maybe this is the difference between a hobbyist and a professional. Either way, I'm not going to stress about it. Speaking for myself, this time, it felt great to be productive instead of perfect. 

You can listen to the entire LensWork podcast here or here. 

Moving Forward, 22 Minutes at a Time

Another great podcast from Brooks Jensen, editor of LensWork Magazine. Here's the setup this time- imagine how much we could further our photography skills and understanding if we simply spent an extra 22 minutes a day at it. Think about what you could get done in 22 minutes-

• Organize the photos from your last shoot and get them off your SD/CF card
• Learn something new in your photo editor of choice  
• Clean your lenses 
• Read a chapter in a photo book that you bought but never finished  
• Go shoot 10 pictures in your backyard 

You get the idea. If we spent an extra 22 minutes a day improving our skills in one way or another, it would add up pretty quickly. That's 2.5 hours a week, 11 hours a month, 132 hours a year, or the equivalent of a week-long workshop (at no cost!). How much better at our craft would we be? Why 22 minutes? The amount of content in a half-hour television show. Something to think about...

You can listen to the entire podcast here or here.

Don't Fight the Rhythm

Brooks Jensen, editor of LensWork magazine has an excellent series of podcasts about the creative process. His latest is called "The Rhythm of Creativity" in which he discusses the challenge we all face sometimes when we're not quite in the flow. You may go out to shoot but not quite see anything for a while. Sometimes you might be out shooting with a partner who's firing away while you're just observing. That's ok. Just let it come to you...

And just a note- all of his podcasts as less than 10 minutes long and make for excellent listening in the car to and from work!

Check it out here.