Previsualization assumes follow-through. If you have an image in your mind when you release the shutter, and in processing the image you change your mind and take it somewhere else, that has to count as a failed previsualization. It may not be a failure as a photograph, however. There are two reasons why you might… [Read More]

What are the barriers to a holistic approach to experimentation and image making? I’ve been talking about the blocks that we create in our heads when we accept previsualization hook, line, and sinker. There are other, more real obstacles. There’s the weight and bulk of photosensitive materials. If you’re backpacking with your 8×10, you probably… [Read More]

Photography, like any art, improves with experimentation. Great photographs don’t usually come about as the result of extended navel-gazing sessions, but as the result of trying something, having it kind of work, making it better, exploring blind alleys, honing away unnecessary elements, and finally arriving at something worthwhile. The result of an experiment is, by… [Read More]

I’m not against all previsualization. If we didn’t do some visualization of what the finished photograph would look like, we wouldn’t need to focus or set the exposure. We wouldn’t need viewfinders. We would point the camera in random directions, trip the shutter at random times, and pore through the results later, like looking for… [Read More]

I live near Carmel, California. The photographic history of this place is freighted with an approach to image-making called previsualization.  Ansel Adams wrote about visualization, which he defined as “the ability to anticipate a finished image before making the exposure”. Many say that Minor White invented the word previsualization, although he credited Adams and Edward… [Read More]