Podcast Summary: The Observable Unknown

Episode: Pen Densham
Host: Dr. Juan Carlos Rey
Date: November 26, 2025

Overview

In this episode, Dr. Juan Carlos Rey welcomes acclaimed filmmaker and fine art photographer Pen Densham for a deep conversation at the confluence of art, intuition, evolution, and healing. The discussion moves from the measurable to the mystical, exploring how Densham’s lifelong journey through myth, loss, nature, and cinematic storytelling has shaped a photographic practice that seeks not only to document, but to rekindle wonder and connection with the world.

Key Topics & Insights

Pen Densham’s Origin Story: Childhood & Artistic Philosophy

• Early immersion in filmmaking due to parents’ careers:

  “I grew up with the mother and father were making short films that went into the movie theater… when I was three and four they took me with them… this all seemed so magical.”
  (03:32, Pen Densham)

• Childhood trauma—loss of his mother, tumultuous home life—deepened his empathy and desire to protect others’ creativity.
• The metaphor of “casting spells with a camera” and a hunger to “express the miraculous” shapes his entire creative ethos.

On Seeing, Familiarity, and Banality

• Explains humans’ evolutionary tendency to stop noticing the familiar, even the miraculous:

  "Familiarity creates banality... We drive home every night… we don't see the road anymore because we're driving from a memory. If I take a photograph of a tree and it's a straightforward tree… But if I take a photograph of a tree and move the camera slightly… we see it again for the first time."
  (07:14, Pen Densham)

• Through techniques like camera motion, light play, and “dissolving boundaries between the real and the remembered,” Densham disrupts banality and invites the viewer into renewed perception.

Evolution, Storytelling, and Mythic Structure

• Cites Robert Wright’s "The Moral Animal" on morality as evolutionary utility.
• Discusses storytelling as a biological and possibly mystical structure:

  "Maybe mythology and spirituality are part of the epigenetics of life … they're actually carrying important survival and spiritual values."
  (10:13, Pen Densham)

• Points to primal narrative needs—love, survival, community—and how mirror neurons may make us “re-strategize ourselves” by watching stories unfold.

Intuition Over Dogma: Breaking Rules in Art

• Rejects the idea of expertise or strict mastery in favor of experimental discovery and humility:

  "I'm allergic to believing that I'm somehow special because I think that's intimidating to other people…"
  (10:13, Pen Densham)

• Describes how watching his daughter’s naive, rule-breaking photography inspired him to reclaim intuition and break from technical dogma:

  “I started to look at photography again and literally waded out into the waves …letting go and feeling foolish as I'm letting go.”
  (17:42, Pen Densham)

Disrupting Familiarity: The Camera as Paintbrush

• Camera techniques as “visual music”: shifting exposure times, camera movement, unorthodox angles, and the refusal to use digital manipulation.
• Compositional flow, sometimes intuitively engaging narrative arcs within a single frame:

  "I think as a filmmaker, I'm now trying to make my stories in a single frame."
  (26:11, Pen Densham)

• Declines using Photoshop for authenticity, describing his process as both analog and deeply personal:

  “If I'm taking an image and I've added elements to it, it's the same as if I dyed my hair. I would not be authentic anymore. I wouldn't be me.”
  (30:06, Pen Densham)

Organic Mandalas, Koi, and the Living Poem

• Describes photographing koi and trees as a ritual, casting subjects as “characters” and compositions as living mandalas.
• Shares stories of building a pond for both art and sanctuary, even negotiating “legal visitation rights” for his koi when selling his house:

  “I said, okay, you can keep my koi, but I want legal visitation rights.”
  (38:55, Pen Densham)

• Adapts to circumstance and serendipity rather than fixating on preordained visions.

Intuition, Serendipity, and the Physicality of Wonder

• Details a workflow relying on “quiet moments… to say, what if?” and letting the environment guide his choices.
• Magic of the “accidental perfect shot” and the joy in discovering the one among hundreds that sings:

  “You shoot a frame… and then suddenly one will just fit. And you see it for three seconds and you go, I'm going to find that one again because it, it just said something…”
  (42:59, Pen Densham)

Connection to Nature and Healing through Art

• Recalls his films “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” and “Moll Flanders”—both born of personal healing, honoring women, and enacting altruism in narrative.
• On nature photography as meditation and ecological advocacy; references biophilia and “forest bathing.”

  “What I'm doing now is just trying to illuminate people to see nature as a part of our life journey, to be responsible for helping to protect it…”
  (46:56, Pen Densham)

• Describes healing old wounds through both creation and the transmission of wisdom, including teaching, writing, and mentoring:

  “I'd like to think that my mother didn't think I wasted my life.”
  (56:52, Pen Densham)

Giving Back: Mentorship and Creative Freedom

• Grateful for Norman Jewison's pivotal mentorship in Hollywood; repays by championing others, demystifying creative anxieties, and encouraging authenticity over conformity.
• Sharply critiques rigid rulebooks for screenwriting and the importance of protecting each person’s unique creative instrument:

  "If I forced you to write exactly the way I write and tell you you're wrong if you don't, I'm destroying something of great value…"
  (58:50, Pen Densham)

Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On Artistic Self-Doubt:
  “Imposter syndrome… things that can make us held back from finding what the true capabilities we have in us or maybe that come through us.” (03:32, Pen Densham)

• On Disrupting Perception:
  “If I can take a photograph that vibrates, that makes us look at a tree for the first time in a way that's fresh, I feel like I'm accomplishing something.”
  (07:14, Pen Densham)

• On Intuitive Process:
  “When I let go of trying to find the familiar, I can read the images for the new truth of what is aesthetically pleasant.” (15:39, Pen Densham)

• On Technical Authenticity:
  “I'm the algorithm… And when I'm searching through what is in that photo, suddenly I will feel that I'm closer to it. And it doesn't have any verbal—there's no like gestalt that says this is the right verbal thing. It is a personal completion.”
  (27:08, Pen Densham)

• On Healing:
  “I'd like to think that my mother didn't think I wasted my life.”
  (56:52, Pen Densham)

Notable Timestamps

• Early childhood and first artistic influences – 03:32
• Discussion of evolutionary perspective and banality – 07:14
• On storytelling and biological narrative – 10:13
• Intuitive, experimental techniques in photography – 17:42, 23:13
• The camera as a paintbrush, embracing imperfection – 32:06
• Photographing koi, nature, and organic mandalas – 35:15
• Role of intuition and serendipity in process – 40:27, 42:59
• Comparing joys of filmmaking and photography – 46:56
• Healing through art and giving back as mentor – 56:12, 58:50

Tone and Takeaways

The dialogue maintains a thoughtful, deeply personal, and gently humorous tone. Densham demystifies both his successes and failures, treating art-making as a process that is as much about healing oneself and rekindling wonder as it is about skill or recognition. The episode invites listeners—artists and seekers alike—to give themselves permission to disrupt their own routines, lean into intuition, and see the world anew, both for themselves and for the greater collective good.

Final word from Dr. Rey (63:36):

“Pen Densham reminds us that imagination is not an escape, but a form of perception… the unseen, the unspoken and the unrepeatable are often the closest to the soul.”

Explore Pen’s work and book: pendenshamphotography.com
Host: Dr. Juan Carlos Rey