One of the biggest mistakes of my youth was focusing my efforts exclusively on photography and ignoring the other visual arts. By defining myself so narrowly as "a photographer," I have missed so many opportunities to see and study other visual media. How can we be photographers and not be interested in etchings, pen and ink drawings, wood block prints, linoleum cuts, and of course painting?
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LW1504 - Photo Groups
04/05/2026 | 12 mins.
LW1504 - Photo Groups
I miss the dialogue of a group. An incredibly important part of my personal growth as a photographer came as the result of my participation in a group in Portland, Oregon known as the Portland Photographer's Forum. (The last I heard this group was still going strong after 40 years.) We had monthly meetings. We looked at photographs and talked about them. That's about it. There were no contests, no awards, no sniping anonymous critique bombs. It was just a group of people who cared about ph
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You might also be interested in. . .
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.
HT2611 - My Medium Is Better Than Yours
03/05/2026 | 2 mins.
HT2611 - My Medium Is Better Than Yours
The word "photography" is an umbrella term that includes dozens of different means of manifestation and distribution of an image. From daguerreotypes to digital prints, from lantern slides to web galleries, technology has provided us with dozens of ways to create a "photograph." Which of these are the most admired, most collectible, most respected of the various imaging technologies? Silver gelatin or platinum/palladium? Analog or digital? Or is this an incredibly silly question?
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HT2610 - There Will Always Be One More Tweak
02/05/2026 | 2 mins.
HT2610 - There Will Always Be One More Tweak
Pablo Picasso famously said that the trick in painting is knowing when to stop. I think this is true in photography as well. There will always be one more tweak we can make to an image to improve it. And when we think we have it perfect, with the passage of time, we'll realize there is one more thing we could do. Ad infinitum. Perfection will always elude us because it's a constantly moving target. At some point, we must be willing to accept "good enough" and let go of the pursuit of perfection.
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.
HT2609 - Creativity Is a Private, Personal Thing
01/05/2026 | 2 mins.
HT2609 - Creativity Is a Private, Personal Thing
Maybe I'm just stubbornly resistant, but I find I simply cannot get excited about suggestions from other people about what I should photograph or how I should put together a project. I think of creativity as a very private and personal activity that is carried out in a space that is strictly my own. Maybe I'm missing something here, but I found this to be true my entire creative life.
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About LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process
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).
Ireland