THE LIGHTROOM STUDIOS BLOG

The painter set up her phone on a tripod, hit record, and immediately felt the creative impulse drain away. What had been an afternoon of intuitive mark-making suddenly became a performance. She was watching herself work, imagining the viewer's perspective, wondering if this brush stroke would look good on camera.

This is the fundamental tension artists face when documenting process: the camera changes everything. The presence of a recording device can transform authentic creative exploration into performance, making artists feel observed rather than absorbed.

Yet process documentation has become increasingly valuable—for marketing, audience building, collector engagement, and even personal insight into one's own practice. The solution isn't avoiding documentation or forcing yourself to ignore the camera. It's developing approaches that minimize disruption while capturing content that genuinely represents your practice.

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