The term "The Decisive Moment" has been an important concept in photographic circles since Cartier-Bresson first coined it with the publication of his book of that name in 1952. I've always struggled with this term because I think of the decisive moment as a time-related concept. Rather than capturing the right instant, I'm more drawn to photographers like André Kertész who give us the transcendent moment.
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HT2636 - Release vs Publish, and Why
28/05/2026 | 2 mins.
HT2636 - Release vs Publish, and Why
I was recently watching a YouTuber discuss the "release" of a new photograph he'd just finished. It evidently was time to go public with this new image. I was struck by his term "release" as though the image had been imprisoned until its liberation. Besides the obvious detention metaphor, I questioned whether or not this is a term used specifically with single images rather than projects with multiple images. Considering all the images we now have in our digital assets, why do we "release" one and not the others? Is this a volumetric decision or a marketing one?
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HT2635 - Money and Print Size
27/05/2026 | 2 mins.
HT2635 - Money and Print Size
I married young, had kids young, about the same time I decided to seriously pursue fine art landscape photography. All serious landscape photographers at the time were shooting large format view cameras which meant 4x5 or 8x10. I could afford neither, so settled for what I could afford which was a 2¼ by 3¼ monorail view camera. Little did I realize the implications of that limitation that set the direction for my entire life in photography. Worse, that hasn't changed in the intervening 50 years.
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HT2634 - A Physical Legacy
26/05/2026 | 2 mins.
HT2634 - A Physical Legacy
As a product of my generation, I've always believed that leaving a physical legacy of our artwork was important. Now that I'm on the threshold of age, I'm not so sure. Those physical artifacts that we create, collect, and/or value may turn out to be a burden to our heirs that they would just as soon not have to dispose. I don't think this has to do only with artwork, but is instead a cultural shift we are living through.
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LW1507 - The Consciousness Barrier, The Conundrum of Art
25/05/2026 | 12 mins.
LW1507 - The Consciousness Barrier, The Conundrum of Art
Most photographs I see don't penetrate very deeply into my consciousness. I know they're there, I fleetingly engage them, but they don't have much power to impress themselves into deeper thought. It's as though there is a barrier that prevents me from engaging with more than a casual glance. I suspect that's not the kind of engagement we want as art makers. How do we get our viewers to break through that shallow consciousness barrier? Shouting isn't the answer.
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Every Picture Is a Compromise, a series at www.brooksjensenarts.com.
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About LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process
About LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process
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).
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