HT2514 - They Are Not All Winners Some of what we produce doesn't wear well over time. Nothing we produce connects with everyone who sees it. This is precisely why there is virtue in producing a lot of work in the nature of an anthology. It not only keeps your creative juices flowing, but also provides your audience a better chance of finding something with which they can connect deeply. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thank...
Jan 26, 2026•3 min
LW1490 - A Cultivated Curiosity I have no doubt that I use less than 10% of what my software is capable of doing. I know there are features that I would find incredibly useful if I just knew about them. Since I don't know about them, I don't even know I should look for them! Instead, I have to rely on luck and a certain cultivated attitude of curiosity. In fact, that's not a bad idea for so many aspects of life. All previous episodes of our weekly podcast are available to members of LensWork Onl...
Jan 26, 2026•13 min
HT2513 - Post-publication Revisions There's a fascinating story about revisions in the great Humphrey Bogart film noir movie The Big Sleep. This has me thinking about post-production revisions. One of the great advantages of digital publication is the ability to revise the content so easily and even instantaneously. Maybe it's a good idea for us to use version numbering like they do in software. This RSS feed includes only the most recent seven Here's a Thought episodes. All of them — over 2400 ...
Jan 25, 2026•3 min
HT2512 - Vacuum Dust A while back I shared some ideas about dealing with the dust that makes those big out of focus blobs in the sky in our images. Here's a companion idea thanks to podcast listener Rob Motta of Boulder, Colorado. 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...
Jan 24, 2026•3 min
HT2511 - Our Inescapable Reliance on Stuff Just as a thought experiment, what would you do if you could no longer purchase ink for your printer? What if the three big printer manufacturers (Epson, Hewlett-Packard, Cannon)suddenly decided to stop manufacturing printers. What if you could no longer purchase film, batteries, or lenses for your camera? We are so dependent on materials whose manufacturer is beyond our control. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here...
Jan 23, 2026•3 min
HT2510 - The Extremes Like many other human activities, photography can easily evolve into an extreme sport. Will your photographs be visibly better with that 100 megapixel camera? Or that 10 gigapixel stitch? Do you really need 60 frames per second in order to capture just that perfect instance? Can you not succeed in wildlife photography unless your lenses is long as the elephant's trunk you are photographing? What is there about extremes that become so seductive in so many walks of life? Show...
Jan 22, 2026•3 min
HT2509 - Where DOF Fails A while back I did a research project looking at almost 10,000 raw captures in my Lightroom catalog. I wanted to determine what caused a failed image to fail, technologically. I did not consider aesthetics but rather the mechanics of photography. My hope was that I could eliminate or at least reduce those technical failures. Two primary failures dominated all others. The number one failure was camera movement, easily resolved with faster shutter speeds or tripods. The se...
Jan 21, 2026•3 min
HT2508 - Mastering the Craft vs Photography Let's talk about feelings. As I think back to all the workshops and classes that I've taken in my 50 years of photography, I can't remember a single one that centered on what I felt or wanted to express. Instead, all I can remember are endless discussions and demonstrations about the craft of photography. There is only one exception that comes to mind and that moment was a question from Bruce Barnbaum I'll never forget. What do you want to experience, ...
Jan 20, 2026•3 min
LW1489 - Your Own Voice In so many ways, we have entered a new era in photography. It's getting harder and harder to be visually unique. Google is photographing everything. Now more than ever we need to find a way to use our own voice in our artwork. All previous episodes of our weekly podcast are available to members of LensWork Online . 30-day Trial Memberships are only $10. Instant access, terabytes of content, inspiration and ideas that expand daily with new content. Sign up for instant acce...
Jan 19, 2026•13 min
HT2507 - You Must Create Your Magnum Opus TODAY Wouldn't it be lovely if we had a switch we could throw that would turn on our creative genius at a moment's notice? Flick goes the switch and your best ever photograph is produced because you commanded it into existence. Unfortunately, life doesn't work that way. Our magnum opus happens in the midst of lots of other work that, well, isn't your magnum opus. Our magnum opus is the result of plowing ahead and simply doing our best with every effort. ...
Jan 19, 2026•3 min
HT2506 - Allocating Our Precious Time The most valuable commodity we have in our art life is not our gear, not our training, not our creative impulses, not our energy and drive. All those things might be important, but they are useless unless we have time. Without time all the potential we've banked by learning our craft and going out photographing will add up to naught. I know it can seem counterintuitive to schedule our creative activities, but in fact having a schedule to work on our art mayb...
Jan 18, 2026•3 min
HT2505 - Buried in Lightroom One of the most dramatic impacts of digital photography is the volume of captures that now reside on all of our hard drives. It's not uncommon at all for me to hear that a photographer has tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of images in their catalog that are, essentially, inaccessible to anyone except the photographer. So much creativity buried in our hard drives just waiting for their turn on stage! This RSS feed includes only the most recent seven Here'...
Jan 17, 2026•3 min
HT2504 - Searching for Threads You've set aside an hour to work on your photography and find yourself sitting at the computer looking at images. At such moments, it is so tempting to spend your precious creative time on a search for images that have potential and then processing them to the best of your abilities. That's not the only option. Alternatively, you might try using that precious time on a different search, a search for the threads that can bind a group of images into a project. Show y...
Jan 16, 2026•3 min
HT2503 - Managing Results vs Managing Work Last year I became frustrated that I wasn't getting done as many photographic projects as I had hoped to finish. My old goal-directed business training kicked in and I decided to set goals for myself. It didn't help. And then I remembered one of the earliest lessons from management training: Don't manage results, manage the work. Set another way, goals are a result, not a tactic. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here...
Jan 15, 2026•3 min
HT2502 - Believability vs Truthfulness The other day I was looking at some of the photo essays done by W. Eugene Smith and published in Life magazine. They're fantastic examples of the integration of image and text, and as such are worth taking the time to study in some detail. In the process of looking at this work. It occurred to me that my underlying assumption in all his photo essays is that they are truthful, that is to say, documentary not fiction. But would it make a difference to my resp...
Jan 14, 2026•3 min
HT2501 - Playing Guitar or Making Music I recently heard a reviewer say of a musician that he didn't play the guitar, he made music. Boy, does that sum up so much about any medium that is the fusion of tools and creative vision — like photography. Do we take pictures or do we make images? Do we make images or do we observe and comment on life? Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!...
Jan 13, 2026•3 min
HT2500 - Here's a Thought Number 2,500 I hope you won't mind if I take just a few moments to say thank you and to celebrate this, our 2,500th Here's a Thought commentary, over 6 years of daily thoughts about photography and the art life. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!...
Jan 12, 2026•3 min
LW1488 - Here's a Thought Number 2,500 I hope you won't mind if I take just a few moments to say thank you and to celebrate this, our 2,500th Here's a Thought commentary, over 6 years of daily thoughts about photography and the art life. All previous episodes of our weekly podcast are available to members of LensWork Online . 30-day Trial Memberships are only $10. Instant access, terabytes of content, inspiration and ideas that expand daily with new content. Sign up for instant access! You might...
Jan 12, 2026•13 min
HT2499 - Photographers and Commerce What percentage of people who bowl aspire to become professional bowlers? What percentage of people who enjoy cooking dinner dream of open a restaurant? Golfers, swimmers, runners, painters, poets, car drivers, pet owners, people who play a musical instrument? Why is it that so many photographers want to sell their work or at least have their work exhibited in a commercial gallery? This RSS feed includes only the most recent seven Here's a Thought episodes. Al...
Jan 11, 2026•3 min
HT2498 - The Natural Look Like I often do with my morning coffee, this morning I watched a few YouTube videos on processing in Lightroom. I've learned a lot from these people, but not always the ideas they think they are teaching. By coincidence, all five videos I watched today were about making images look natural. Why is this the objective? I know I keep circling back to this point, but is photography a substitute for human vision or is it a medium for artistic expression? This RSS feed includ...
Jan 10, 2026•3 min
HT2497 - The Unhealthy Pursuit of Perfection We've been watching a television series in which one of the main characters is constantly getting herself in trouble by pursuing perfection. She then finds herself in difficulty because the perfect is never attainable. She pushes people to unreasonable extremes, is constantly dissatisfied no matter how successful her actions are, repeatedly makes irrational decisions that cause her best intentions to collapse. Where is the line between pursuing excell...
Jan 09, 2026•3 min
HT2496 - Transportation and Photography With very few exceptions, my photography is thoroughly dependent on my ability to transport myself from one location to another. The only time I don't use a car to go photographing has been my trips to Japan and China. Even there an important part of my success in photography relies on an effective transportation strategy. I never used to think about this in my youth, but now a transportation strategy has become a huge requirement I dare not ignore or take...
Jan 08, 2026•3 min
HT2495 - Wishing For More A large part of the production of fine art photographs involves a frustration that we wish our images were better. We'd like them to be more. The implied question is what more could you add to your photographs that would make you happy? More sharpness? More audience? More exotic locations? More print sales? If you could wave a magic wand, what precisely would you bring into your photographic life that would bring you satisfaction? Show your appreciation for our free wee...
Jan 07, 2026•3 min
HT2494 - Bridging the Gap Between Life and Fiction I've been thinking a lot lately about the role of media in our generation and the growth of fiction. Most of what we see on television is a fiction, video games are a fiction, so much of YouTube is a fiction, and even social media includes a significant amount of fiction. AI is going to compound this. It's not surprising that so much of photography (a quintessential 20th century medium) has become a fiction. Is it fair to say that our generation...
Jan 06, 2026•3 min
LW1487 - The Photography I Love Aesthetic conventions come and go. Culture and popular tastes are constantly changing. Example: There are no radio stations that play big band music anymore even though it once ruled the airwaves. The photographic aesthetic I grew up with and still love to this day is losing audience and slowly sliding into history. All the more reason to spend time with and enjoy the work we love and love doing, while we can. All previous episodes of our weekly podcast are availa...
Jan 05, 2026•13 min
HT2493 - More on Observation vs Project Yesterday I was talking about how we might describe what we photographers actually do. Is the core of our activities that we build something or is it that we observe something? Here are a few additional thoughts about this distinction that might change a great deal about our creative life. Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free daily Here's a Thought… with a donation Thanks!...
Jan 05, 2026•3 min
HT2492 - Observation or Project Terminology is such an interesting thing. For some time now, I've used the term "project" as the nomenclature for something produced with multiple images and a small amount of text or title. Of late, however, I have come to think of the word "observation" as perhaps a better term to illustrate the core of this activity in our art life. Observation is less about what we make and more about what is revealed to us, and as such seems closer to the core of what makes o...
Jan 04, 2026•3 min
HT2491 - Craft Becomes Obsolete, Art Does Not I'm not sure the title of this commentary is actually true, but it does point to a thought that can be helpful. In essence, how we make pictures is constantly changing since the first days of photography. Technology marches on, continually, relentlessly. The content of what are photographs portray, the artistic content, remains relevant and possibly even innovative even after the passage of decades. This RSS feed includes only the most recent seven H...
Jan 03, 2026•3 min
HT2490 - The Competition for Attention Here, deep in the age of media, doesn't it seem obvious that there is a raging and ever-present contest for our attention. Consider the next hour of leisure in your life. What will you do with that 60 minutes? Watch TV? Read a book? Listen to some music? Go shopping? Spend time with your friends or family? Or, will you dedicate those 60 minutes to looking at art, especially photographic art? Show your appreciation for our free weekly Podcast and our free da...
Jan 02, 2026•3 min
HT2489 - Processing for the Medium There now exist so many different media we can choose for the output of our photographs. These choices imply that we need to process our images with the output medium in mind. An image intended for a small scale phone/screen presentation is likely to require different processing than if we intend to make a large scale framed print. We could possibly have a dozen different completions with any given image, each produced for a different kind of presentation. Show...
Jan 01, 2026•3 min
