24 Jun 2015

The Lucky Shirt

Minimalism as Less Elements

Minimalist Photography By © Prakash Ghai
Buy Now

Green shirt hanging on a clothesline against a weathered orange wall in Jaipur, minimalist color photography by Prakash Ghai

I was walking along a busy street in Jaipur with my camera when I spotted this shirt drying on a clothesline on the footpath. A group of nomads lived right there, just a plastic tent over their heads and life on the busy street rushing past them. I almost walked past the subejct at first but then the color palette was too good to ignore. The green against that orange wall was a perfect minimalist frame and palette that would add some novelty to my portfolio.

I have been shooting minimalist photos for years and these accidental stops are still the ones I remember the most. The planned walks to Jawahar Kala Kendra or Jantar Mantar, those hit different than these unplanned ones.

I moved in a bit closer to the green shirt and got rid of everything else around it. Fewer elements in the frame means more weight on the primary subject. That is the core logic of minimalism and which is why it works every single time.

How I Composed This Minimalist Photo

The weathered orange wall behind the shirt was doing half the work already. I did not need to manufacture a striking background for contrast. The texture was already there, along with the warmth. I let the metal clothesline enter the frame diagonally from the top left and allowed the shirt to take place on the right side.

The shirt was still partially wet and that made the color from a darker green at the top of the sleeve to a lighter shade toward its bottom. That gradation gave the frame depth without adding extra elements. Less is more, even in the way a fabric dries.

I kept the shirt as the sole isolated subject with the wall filling everything behind it. Negative space was not the main goal here, I wanted to highligh the shirt. Sometimes in minimalist photography you fill the frame and still keep it minimal. This time I did it by being close to the subject but not too close.