Camera Shake Photography Podcast
Aug 27, 2026 · 1 hr 16 min · 13 segments
How do you become a photographer when you cannot picture images in your mind? In “The Photographer Who Can’t Picture His Own Photos,” Kersten Luts speaks with fine-art travel photographer Nico…
Nico TrinkhausGuestKersten NutzHostUh, just give a sort of a, a sort of a brief explanation of what that actually is.

So, so very brief, the easiest example of how I can explain it is that if you close your eyes and you think about a beach, like what happens? Like, do you see something? Uh, do you see a beach? Do you see the, the sand, the waves, the sun? Um, or is it like with me that I close my eyes and I see black, so there's absolutely nothing [chuckles]-

There's just a screen of black, as if I'm having my eyes open in a very dark room.

And, uh, yeah, for a long time I had no idea that that is not normal because how would you know? And but apparently there is only 1% or 2% of the population that have this, I don't know to call it an issue, but who have this condition of, um, not being able to visualize.

Uh, so it's like, let's say it's on a scale from one to 10, and like for me, I can dream at night, so if I dream at night, I see images.

Um, some people don't even have that, so for them, even at night, there's just nothing.

They still have like an abstract concept of what's happening, but they don't see any visual images.

And some people can see, but only see it like very, uh, like black and white-ish, see some shapes, but not, not, not, uh, real.

Uh, until when you have like the opposite spectrum where you can really, uh, visualize pretty much anything, and like my wife is on the, on the f- opposite scale, and she says like, for her, even with, uh, if she has her eyes open, she can, uh, have like augmented reality and like put things into the reality and see dragons flying, and I'm like, "I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about." [chuckles] Uh, so, so it's, it's really like a spectrum for us humans of how our brain works apparently with that.
So i- if we take the, you know, the picture that we just talked about, the Alexanderplatz picture.
... that photo and, and you close your eyes, can you visualize that image in your mind's eye or no?
Uh, just give a sort of a, a sort of a brief explanation of what that actually is.

So, so very brief, the easiest example of how I can explain it is that if you close your eyes and you think about a beach, like what happens? Like, do you see something? Uh, do you see a beach? Do you see the, the sand, the waves, the sun? Um, or is it like with me that I close my eyes and I see black, so there's absolutely nothing [chuckles]-

There's just a screen of black, as if I'm having my eyes open in a very dark room.

And, uh, yeah, for a long time I had no idea that that is not normal because how would you know? And but apparently there is only 1% or 2% of the population that have this, I don't know to call it an issue, but who have this condition of, um, not being able to visualize.

Uh, so it's like, let's say it's on a scale from one to 10, and like for me, I can dream at night, so if I dream at night, I see images.

Um, some people don't even have that, so for them, even at night, there's just nothing.

They still have like an abstract concept of what's happening, but they don't see any visual images.

And some people can see, but only see it like very, uh, like black and white-ish, see some shapes, but not, not, not, uh, real.

Uh, until when you have like the opposite spectrum where you can really, uh, visualize pretty much anything, and like my wife is on the, on the f- opposite scale, and she says like, for her, even with, uh, if she has her eyes open, she can, uh, have like augmented reality and like put things into the reality and see dragons flying, and I'm like, "I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about." [chuckles] Uh, so, so it's, it's really like a spectrum for us humans of how our brain works apparently with that.
So i- if we take the, you know, the picture that we just talked about, the Alexanderplatz picture.
... that photo and, and you close your eyes, can you visualize that image in your mind's eye or no?
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