Constraints as cognitive tools - part 3

Part 3: What happens in your head

Mar 17, 2026

This is part three of a three-part series on constraints in photography. Part one explored the different types of constraints. Part two looked at how to make them work in practice. In this final part, we go deeper into what actually happens in your brain when constraints do their job, and why the effect can extend far beyond the moments when the constraint is in place.

There is a moment during a RBNXPLRNG walk that I have come to know well. The route takes me somewhere I would never normally go. A back street, an industrial area, a residential neighbourhood with no particular character. My first reaction is always the same: there is nothing to photograph here.

And then something starts to shift.

I cannot move to a better location. The route has been decided, not by me. So instead of looking for what I expect, I start seeing what is actually there. The light on a facade. The way a kerb throws its shadow. Something I would have walked past ten times without noticing.

For a long time I thought this was simply a matter of patience. By now I think something more fundamental is happening.

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The network that hijacks your attention

Looking for an explanation of what happens in my head during RBNXPLRNG walks, I came across the work of Judson Brewer. In his book The Craving Mind he describes how habits operate as automatic reward cycles in the brain, and introduces a concept I had not encountered before but recognised immediately: the ‘Default Mode Network’.

This is the network that becomes active when your thoughts wander. When you think about yourself, make plans, retrieve memories, or worry about what is coming. Brewer describes how this network is active for roughly half of our waking lives, and that this activity correlates with a lower degree of presence and wellbeing.

What does this have to do with photography? More than you might think.

When you walk to a familiar location with expectations about what you are going to photograph, your Default Mode Network is largely at work. You are anticipating, evaluating, comparing with previous sessions. You are physically present but mentally already halfway through the editing process.

The constraints discussed in the first two parts of this series break precisely this mechanism.

‘Choiceless Awareness’ without a meditation cushion

In The Craving Mind, Brewer describes a meditation technique he calls ‘Choiceless Awareness’. The principle: direct your attention to whatever arises in your field of awareness at any given moment, without selecting or steering. Not focusing on one object, but remaining open to everything that presents itself.

What he describes is that people who practise this approach regularly show less activity in the central nodes of the Default Mode Network. Their brains are less occupied with self-directed processing and more present with what is actually in front of them.

I am not claiming that RBNXPLRNG is the same as meditation. Far from it. But the structure resembles each other in a striking way. A random route removes your expectation. You cannot anticipate what you are going to find, so your Default Mode Network has less to hold onto. You are forced to be present with what is actually there, not with what you hope or expect to see.

That is probably not a coincidence. It is the same mechanism, just reached by a different route.

Why habits narrow your attention

Our brain is an efficiency machine. Familiar situations are quickly categorised so that mental energy can be saved for new challenges. Habits, including photographic ones, are essentially energy-saving mechanisms.

The problem is that this efficiency comes at a price. When you walk the same route, visit the same locations, use the same lenses, your brain increasingly filters out information as irrelevant. You see less, not because there is less to see, but because your brain has decided it is not worth processing.

Constraints sabotage this mechanism in a productive way. A fixed focal length removes a choice, but also forces you to find new solutions for situations you would otherwise have avoided. A random route takes you to places that fall outside your pattern of expectation, so your brain cannot quickly dismiss them as familiar.

The result is a state of attention closer to what Brewer calls open monitoring than to the directed, selective attention with which we typically photograph.

The practical implication

This changes how I think about what constraints actually do. They are not just a way to reduce decision fatigue or practise discipline. They are a way to restructure your attention.

Brewer describes in his book how the transition to a broader, less directed attention does not happen by itself. The Default Mode Network is dominantly present and constantly pulls at your attention. But it is also trainable. People who practised this approach for years showed structurally different brain activity than beginners.

For photographers this means something concrete. The constraints from parts one and two of this series are not just practical tools. They are also a form of training for your attention. Every time a constraint forces you to be present with what is actually in front of you, rather than with what you expect or hope to see, you are practising a capacity that is difficult to develop through technical skill alone.

That also explains why the effect of RBNXPLRNG for me was not limited to the walks themselves. Over time I began to see differently, even in places I already knew well. Not because the places had changed, but because my way of seeing had.

A brief side note

I want to be honest about the limits of what I am describing here. What Brewer describes concerns meditation, not photography. The parallel is plausible and intellectually interesting, but it is an analogy, not a proven mechanism. There is no study that directly connects RBNXPLRNG or photographic constraints to changes in the Default Mode Network.

What I can say is this: the structure of what constraints do; removing expectation, breaking habits, forcing presence, connects closely to what researchers understand about how attention works. That makes the experience recognisable and explainable, even when the direct scientific line is not there.

And perhaps that is enough. Not every insight needs a randomised study to be useful.

When I asked readers about their experiences, one response came in that I had not expected but that gets right to the heart of it. There is one more effect of constraints that I had not anticipated when I started exploring this, and that a Darkrooms reader put into words precisely. perfectlight, who has worked for years with all kinds of technical constraints including a camera with only three shutter speeds, describes how constraints have changed not only his way of seeing but also his confidence as a photographer. “If I can do photography when restrictions are in place, imagine what I can do without restrictions.”

That is perhaps the most unexpected byproduct of working with constraints: not just a sharper eye, but a deeper trust in your own capacity to see. The constraint does not show you what you are missing. It shows you what you already can do.

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