Simple 5 Moves Play with Aestheticism and Simplicity
Minimalist Photography Pursue to express the theme of the picture with the least picture elements. The picture is simple and clear but meaningful. It is a very popular creation style today.
However, minimalism is not “extremely simple”. How to create rich images with limited element combinations is a technical task, and many technical details and precautions need to be understood.
Today, I would like to share some of the most basic points of minimalist style works for you, which will definitely help your creation. Don’t miss it~
1. “Clean” background
For works of minimalist style, the screen elements are extremely simple and limited, so the background must be clean and concise, otherwise it will dominate.
A clean background can be a large single tone scene, such as a clean, cloudless blue sky, a quiet water surface, a large stretch of grassland, etc.:
It should be noted that “large single tone” is not “uniform tone of the whole picture”. A few well-defined solid color scenes can also be used as a good minimalist style background.
As shown in the following figure, the background color is obviously divided into three layers: black ground, blue sea and light yellow sky. The overall color of the picture is not single, but it is very simple.
Can’t find large areas of solid color? Then look for a small piece of solid color area, and enlarge it in the viewfinder box, and it will naturally become a large piece of solid color area.
A clean white wall and a small piece of sky exposed between buildings can become the solid background we need as long as they are large enough:
A small white wall magnified is a clean background
It should be noted that when a part is enlarged to create a solid background, the subject will also be enlarged accordingly. Pay attention to the image proportion of the subject.
If the subject is too large and the “blank” of the picture is insufficient, there is no sense of minimalism:
The main body is too big, and there is no sense of minimalism
It is also a good idea to shoot in foggy and snowy days.
The power of nature has forcibly changed everything in the world into a unified color, which is a good opportunity to shoot minimalist works:
The fog removes the details of the environment, making the background extremely clean
Finally, it should be pointed out that the background of “clean and uniform” does not necessarily mean “nothing”.
Regularly repeated structures and textures, coupled with small pieces of objects that break this rule, are also an important form of expression of minimalist style works.
A lot of repeated structures are also a clean background
2. Strengthen the main body
The important feature of minimalist style is that the subject is small, and the screen has a lot of blank space. However, too weakening the subject is also unfavorable to the creation of minimalist works.
In fact, one of the common mistakes of minimalist works is that they are too “minimalist”. The whole picture is empty and they don’t know what they want to express:
No subject, no theme
The mistake of “forgetting to arrange the main body” in the above figure may not be committed by ordinary people; However, the mistake of “low sense of subject existence” in the following figure is quite common:
The background is a rhythmic ripple with a sense of existence, while the main body belongs to the black and white color system, with low contrast, and the picture proportion is very small, so there is no sense of existence.
So, at a glance, this picture is “nothing”
In fact, the above figure can be a good work if it is slightly modified to strengthen the contrast between the subject and the background, or increase the proportion of the subject’s picture appropriately:
In actual shooting, you can also try a variety of subject proportions to see which effect is better:
If there is no zoom head when shooting, it is difficult to freely adjust the image proportion of the subject. It is also possible to leave this problem for later clipping.
After all,Minimalist Photography The original goal is not to achieve high image quality and detail expression, but to pay more attention to that feeling~
3. Composition
When the subject is small and the color is not prominent, you can try to use the trichotomy and or center composition to ensure that it has a certain sense of existence:
The composition of the picture adopts the three-way method, and the sense of subject existence is fair
The edge composition is adopted, and the main body is too small for space
When the subject is large, the edge composition should be used as much as possible to prevent it from filling the picture too full, leaving insufficient space and losing the sense of “minimalism”:
The main body is put on the edge, and the picture has a large area of blank space. The minimalist style is remarkable
The main body is placed in the center, the picture is very full, and there is no sense of minimalism
4. Make good use of lines
There is a kind of thing whose picture proportion may be very small, but it can cover the whole picture, with a strong sense of existence. It is a line, a line in a simple background.
Horizontal and vertical lines, or a group of directional lines in the same direction, can effectively guide the audience’s line of sight. How to arrange these lines depends on your spatial layout intention.
A group of powerful convergence lines, leading the vision to the vertical depth
The zigzag lines lead the audience to see through the screen and pass the main body
The lines are full of pictures, but the pictures are simple and clear
The branches in the foreground serve as a frame to lead the vision to the main body
In a word, lines are the best partner of minimalist style. As long as the background is simple enough, the lines themselves are not too messy and can be used freely.
5. Proper late stage
Proper post-processing is very important for minimalist photography.
Sometimes, you need to increase the contrast of the picture to make the subject more prominent; Remove the noise and make the background color more uniform; Adjust curves, enhance shading contrast, and so on.
Effect comparison after one minute simple treatment
You can also try to turn the picture into black and white later.
It should be noted that the post conversion to black and white does not simply perform the decolorization operation. It is recommended to use the professional black and white mode in the later software to convert color pictures to black and white.
Taking PS as an example, select “Image” – “Adjust” – “Black and white” in the upper menu bar, and this picture will appear:
We can see that there are many color options on the interface. What is this for?
After different colors are converted to black and white, there are still some differences in the forms of expression. This interface can be used to adjust the depth and proportion of various colors in black and white photos in the original screen.
Take this photo as an example:
Turn down the red color on the “black and white” interface and increase the blue color at the same time. The results are as follows:
Conversely, turn up red and turn down blue, and the results are as follows:
You can simply understand it this way: turning down a certain color means that the part of that color in the original screen will appear darker in the resulting black and white photos, and vice versa.
By adjusting black and white in this way, you can selectively strengthen and weaken the tone of a certain color in the black and white picture, so as to better strengthen the sense of “minimalism”.
Having said so much, it’s your turn to try it yourself.
In fact, the biggest advantage of minimalist photography is that it requires less equipment and more creativity. Try more, you can also shoot good works!
