LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process Brooks Jensen

Has photography become too easy? Or has the technology of photography become so easy that the challenge has shifted. Making a visually interesting, emotionally powerful, meaningful piece of artwork is as difficult as it has ever been. That's becoming more and more obvious as the challenges of the craft parts of photography evaporate with the ever more sophisticated technology.

Aging photographers are engaged in a race to used their cumulative wisdom and training before their body prevents them from accomplishing their goals. That lesson was one of the greatest ones I learned from Oliver Gagliani.

I like to think that composition is not a static way of geometrically arranging the objects in a picture, but rather arranging what's inside the frame so that the image makes a visual gesture. This brings a life to the photograph that static geometry cannot.

The problem with pure white is that it has no detail, no texture, and no life. Pure white is the absence of all color and is just a blank spot. The trick with white is to preserve detail.

Almost every photographer I've talked to has a turning point story. Something happens and your philosophy and the direction of your photography change dramatically. It's almost as though that is a necessary process in our creative life.

What happens when you are out photographing and you are simply not motivated to make photographs? Is it better to push yourself into a creative model, or is there another approach that can get your creative juices flowing?