LensWork - Photography and the Creative Process
Mar 26, 2026 · 6 min · 3 segments
<P></P> <H3>HT2573 - The Starting Point</H3> <P>My approach to processing is that with every image, the end point of processing is unknown. Aesthetics can evolve, ideas can blossom, expectations can…
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My approach to processing is that with every image, the end point of processing is unknown.
I like not to go into processing with a pre-visualized idea of what I want the image to be, but instead, I try to open myself up to what's in the image.
The ideas that I'm working with can blossom and change, and my expectations will change right along with it.
So rather than using processing as a means to get somewhere that I've preconceived, maybe at the time of clicking the shutter, Instead, I look at each image as raw material that I have to discover how, well, let me say it, it wants to be processed.
That it, of course, is probably more to do with my subconscious than it is with the ones and zeros on my hard disk, but you get the idea.
I'm trying not to impose my will on the image to make it become something that it doesn't want to be.
What I find is that with every image, it's a good idea to start with a sort of normal-looking image.
So with all the images I bring in, I do a few things just to begin the process.
I'll do some tonal adjustments to get the contrast right and the whites and the darks to look right and pull up the shadows if I need to.
The kind of stuff that probably in my youth I would consider arriving at the end point.
But no, when I'm done doing all of that processing, so the photograph sort of looks like what I think a normal photograph would look like.
I don't do anything more to the image than basic adjustments that make it look kind of like it looked to my eye when I was there.
And those kinds of images I suppose I would characterize as a straight photograph.
Without visible processing, that is to say, you don't see the hand of the artist, me in this case, in that image.
Instead, what you see is just the subject that was captured, the light that was captured, the scene.
My approach to processing is that with every image, the end point of processing is unknown.
I like not to go into processing with a pre-visualized idea of what I want the image to be, but instead, I try to open myself up to what's in the image.
The ideas that I'm working with can blossom and change, and my expectations will change right along with it.
So rather than using processing as a means to get somewhere that I've preconceived, maybe at the time of clicking the shutter, Instead, I look at each image as raw material that I have to discover how, well, let me say it, it wants to be processed.
That it, of course, is probably more to do with my subconscious than it is with the ones and zeros on my hard disk, but you get the idea.
I'm trying not to impose my will on the image to make it become something that it doesn't want to be.
What I find is that with every image, it's a good idea to start with a sort of normal-looking image.
So with all the images I bring in, I do a few things just to begin the process.
I'll do some tonal adjustments to get the contrast right and the whites and the darks to look right and pull up the shadows if I need to.
The kind of stuff that probably in my youth I would consider arriving at the end point.
But no, when I'm done doing all of that processing, so the photograph sort of looks like what I think a normal photograph would look like.
I don't do anything more to the image than basic adjustments that make it look kind of like it looked to my eye when I was there.
And those kinds of images I suppose I would characterize as a straight photograph.
Without visible processing, that is to say, you don't see the hand of the artist, me in this case, in that image.
Instead, what you see is just the subject that was captured, the light that was captured, the scene.
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