How to shoot good minimalist photography works?
Minimalist Photography It became popular many years ago and has been enduring. There is a reason why it can catch fire. First of all, the picture is very clean, and there are no unnecessary disturbing elements to disturb the viewer’s line of sight. The simple elements screen colors on another level, and simple color matching makes colors more powerful in the picture.
As a result, minimalist photography has become one of the styles of many photographers. In daily life, they always look for blank space to shoot simplified content.
And minimalism is not a new thing. In any art form, including sculpture, painting, etc., there has been a concept of minimalism. Although the elements have become less, it does not mean that minimalism is easy to make. On the contrary, it requires you to use limited elements to create unlimited content space, which will more reflect the artistic accomplishments of a creator on some levels.
Photo by Kai C. Schwarzer
Since it is called minimalism, the key word “Jane” means extremely clean, free of impurities, and all elements in the picture should have their practical uses. Although we know that this is very difficult to achieve in the real world, as far as we are concerned, there will always inevitably be interference of one kind or another. Unless it is removed in a later way, it will be difficult to achieve real “minimalism”. So, how to shoot minimalist works efficiently? It may be a problem that every photographer who wants to shoot this type of film has to think about.
Like any photograph, a story is the most important thing that a photograph wants to convey to the audience. In minimalist photography, if you want to tell the story as efficiently as possible, it means that there should be a clean background, appropriate negative space and a clear theme. It is believed that no one wants too many disturbing elements in the photos to disturb the narrative of the story and lead the audience’s perspective into another inexplicable direction.
Keeping the background clean, no matter through virtual processing, solid color or simple texture, you can easily eliminate unnecessary interference.
In landscape photography, the use of negative space is also necessary. Whether experienced photographers or painters, they will deliberately reserve a part of the space in their own pictures. This part of the space has no decoration. It can be completely black or full bright. Although this space is not impressive, it plays an important role in setting off the theme. As for the picture surrounded by mountains, the clear blue sky is an obvious negative space, and part of the blue sky will further set off the magnificent mountains.
Photo by Hossein Zare
In portrait photography or still life photography, one of the consequences of using a large aperture to shoot the main experience is to create a shallow depth of field, and the virtualization outside the theme, which completely separates the main body from the background, forming two spaces that do not interfere with each other. Although the picture is blurred, it does not obscure the theme, but saves the subject from disturbing elements in the background.
Photo by maf04
Photo by Susanne Nilsson
Another of the most important elements of minimalist photography is color, which is used to create contrast. In a simple picture, two or three colors are used to juxtapose each other, and they are highlighted in the image to improve the appeal of the image.
Pic Via Google
In most cases, minimalist photos tend to use large areas of tiled colors to establish simplicity, but you still need to understand colors, the role of different color combinations, whether to create harmony or conflict. Then, according to the nature of your theme, choose appropriate complementary colors to enhance your theme.
Photo by Stewart Ayrey
Photo by Kai C. Schwarzer
If it is a black and white work, you should pay attention to the proportion of black, white and gray in the photo, the contrast between black and white, and the role of gray tone in the work.
Minimalist photography is usually a work with very simple pictures. The photographer tries to use the combination of simple elements (points, lines, and surfaces) to guide the viewer into the right direction. In your work, any possible elements will guide the audience’s eyes. Therefore, it is more necessary to reduce the number of elements in the picture to describe the story.
Photo by Iaki Bolumburu
Photo by Iaki Bolumburu
In our daily life, the “line” element is almost everywhere. Whether it is the outline of the building, the extension of the road, or the distant horizon, it is the existence of the “line” element in the daily space. But just because they can be seen everywhere, they are more likely to inevitably appear in the picture to interfere with the line of sight. In the composition, the direction of the “line” in the picture should be analyzed. The “line” in the picture should not lead the viewer’s eyes to a place far away from the subject, or any frame that is not in the actual destination.
Textures can also be powerful expressive elements in photos. Because of the limited language space of minimalism, textures are often used as themes, and they often appear in the form of repeated patterns to convey content to viewers, including emotions, including light, including darkness.
Photo by Hossein Zare
Photo by Hossein Zare
As a photographer, the only way to improve yourself is to constantly try to shoot and think, so that you can innovate your creation and make your works attractive.
Although minimalism is still very popular today, most people’s minimalism is just a simple content in the screen background, which cannot effectively express the theme and emotion. Emotion is the soul of a photograph, and theme is the focus of a photographer’s creation.
It is not difficult to “make” those photos that look “good”. It is the most important thing for every photographer to take his own style of work.
