Together Yet Apart

Minimalism as Simple Geometry 

Photo By © Prakash Ghai
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Some relationships are strange, difficult, stagnant and not easy to manage. You are both in and out of love at the same time. Together, but miles apart. It is a strange feeling and you just cant do anything about it. You are helpless. You can only sit at the shore and admire the beauty of the sea and its waves from far away, but you can not walk-in for a dip like you used to do before. Of course the relationship began with a big bang, loads of love and care but now there is a "constant gap" in the relationship. You both came to know how different you are from each other and that you have very different habits, friends, and views on life. You've just stumbled upon the "compatible yet incompatible" stage of the relationship. Neither of you have created the distance in the relationship but it is there and is a constant one. You have "not fought" but you don't talk much either. You've realized that the feel and charm of the relationship is over. You neither want to end it, nor do you want to let it continue. You are still friends but "only friends on paper", you are more of an acquaintance now. Such a relationship is being depicted here by two parallel lines(that never meet) created by the traditional Indian plastic clotheslines(ropes) used to dry clothes out in the open here in India.  

Composition

The photo uses "Simple Geometry" as a base. i.e Lines and the Black Triangle. The lines would have been boring to look at, if I would have kept them at 180 degrees. Keeping them at a slight upward tilt adds some sense of motion to the shot. The viewers eyes are almost lead out of the frame to the right by the parallel lines but are brought right back into it by the masculine shadow of the triangle going just the opposite way. 

Other Minimalist Photos using Clothesline as a Subject:

 

• Knot in a Relationship

• The Lucky Shirt

• Loose Ends

• Middle Class

T Point

Minimalism as Simple Geometry 

Photo By © Prakash Ghai
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At times in life we are faced with tricky situations or lets say some T-points where we are left with only two choices to a problem at hand. We have to choose one from them and it gets really confusing. I encountered one such T-point at age 22. I had a girlfriend whom I loved a lot and had plans to marry her. I had also been selected for my Post Graduation MBA (masters in business administration) by an MBA college in Bangalore and had the call letter with me. I had to choose one among-st "Higher Education" or "Marriage". I chose the former. And so my relationship turned into a long distance relationship and the girl just could not wait for me. Initially I thought that I made the wrong choice but later I realized if she truly loved me she would have waited. Anyways that was in 2003 but thank god (if he exists) I am still single because you get a lot of spare time for yourself, which you don't get after marriage. I am happy to be utilizing it for my art and photography. Of course I am looking forward to getting married but I don't think so I can do all this with ease and freedom later, like writing blog posts, taking photographs, buy expensive camera equipments, running multiple social media accounts, hang around with friends, come back home late nights. I do realize that once married I would only be able to give 1/4th of the total time I am giving to my photography right now, so I am making the best use of it.

OK, back to the Composition

This was shot at Jaipur Literature Festival 2016 which is held every year in January. I attend such events primarily to practice shooting celebrities and authors(although that's not my genre, I do it for the fun of it). I attended a few of their talk sessions as well and got a fair idea of what it takes to be there on the stage. I also look forward to the decorations at the venue i.e. Diggi Palace, which I already admire a lot for its heritage beauty. The colorful decorations along with some light and shadow throws up unique visuals that are a treat for Minimalist Photographers. For the shot, I first followed the patch of sunlight and then looked for some color. The blue tent was shortlisted. I knew now that my backdrop was ready and that now I only had to look for an interesting foreground object. A black ladder was lying right in front of the tent and was looking fabulous against the blue. I bent down on my knees and placed one of the T-points of the ladder's step on the top left double rule of thirds corner and my job was done. Editing the shot was extremely tricky as the blue wasn't coming out proper. Since I always shoot RAW+JPEG I switched over to the RAW file for better editing and that took me about 1 hour out of which 45 minutes just to get the blue right.

Back to Heaven

Minimalism as Simple Geometry

Photo By © Prakash Ghai
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I am doing this post after a long time. I had been busy all this while promoting Minimalist Photography via my Instagram Page LearnMinimalism. I have been working very hard over it for the last few months and now the base work has been completed. Therefore, I have some spare time again to do blog posts. Well, Last week I was out for a photo-walk and I wanted to do a post then but I happen to jam my camera's shutter and had submitted my camera to the service center for repairs. Its only today that I got my camera back with the shutter replaced by a new one. Thankfully I had a few days of warranty left or else I would have had to pay roughly about $100. On my way back from the service center I stopped at a local coffee shop for some test shots. This is one among-st them. The cafe is really beautiful. Its a garden cafe with gravel laid down on the floor, green plants everywhere and some fascinating colors and architecture. Loved their sense of aesthetics. This staircase I spotted at the back of the cafe and what was striking was the two little yellow arcs on the right. In fact there were three of them but I took two for my composition. I titled this "Back to Heaven" as I got that feel the moment I looked at it. Of course, whether I go to Heaven or Hell depends on my Karma but I am so far happy and confident of it, hence the assumption. 

There were many different ways this could be shot but I choose an aperture of about F/8 and focused right on the center pillar of the staircase rail. I wanted the pillar and it edges sharp and the two arcs on the right properly exposed and in focus. I was standing a little to the right of the staircase I was OK to have the steps fall in focus on their own with that aperture setting. I had my 50mm 1.4 pricey prime lens on. I could have also shot this at F/11 is what I realized later. Anyways do let me know your feedback about the shot. Have a nice day.

Illuminated Exit

Minimalism as Less Elements

Photo by © Prakash Ghai
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Each soul has a purpose in life and the purpose is made known to it before it takes shelter into a body. Some souls are able to fulfill their purpose and are given an Illuminated (or celebrated) Exit from the world just like a gala farewell party to a performing employee of the company. The illuminated geometric structure with sky in the background is used here to depict such a scenario. Many souls on the other hand fall prey to minds influenced by the material society, hence they feel trapped and continuously crave for an exit. So the question is what do you do? Well, become aware of your soul and its wants. Listen its calls. Make it feel comfortable in your body. Don't do any sort of self-harm. Follow a healthy life-style. Souls may want to live longer in your body to fulfill their purpose and they would tend to feel restless in an unhealthy body.

Ok, now back to the shot. This shot was taken at Jantar Mantar during the first Instameet cum Photowalk oragnised by my Instagram Page "Learn Minimalism" for the theme Simple Geometry on 20.09.2015. (I am doing my bit to popularize this genre of photography.) Although I have categorized this shot under "Minimalism as Less Elements", this can also go in under "Minimalism as Simple Geometry" i.e lines. I was down on my knees for the shot, looking towards the sky and it took me a good 6-7 shots to finally get done. I generally compose shots using my LCD screen but since it was extremely hot and bright nothing was visible on the screen. Therefore I switched over to the View Finder. Why did I mention this? because in the View Finder of most cameras there is no 3x3 overlapping grid which makes things a little tough for visual artists like me.

The Half-way mark

Minimalism as Less Elements

Photo by © Prakash Ghai
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One may have any kind of goal or objective in his/her life but it all begins with the first few steps. Generally goals, (I am not talking about dreams here as they are usually vague) are set high and one starts working on them on the premise of hope, optimism and hard-work combined. But what happens with most people is that they work way too hard right at the start and get tired or exhausted by the time they are supposed to reach the "Half Way Mark". 

They end up concluding that the path they chose was wrong and they should try something else. My point here is that one should be patient enough and work at a steady pace until one reaches the Half Way Mark. Because after reaching this point, the goal (depicted by the red square) becomes clearly visible and what needs to be done or how many more stairs to climb to get there becomes clearly visible too (depicted by the number of stairs left to be taken). 

So what we learn here is that we should never take a call on something before we reach the half way mark. 

Getting back to the Mini-tutorial part of the photo. This is Minimalism as Less Elements. Some of you may argue that the geometry is spread out evenly and the shot is a little too detailed. But here I have inferred the Staircase in totality as one elements and the red square as a supporting side element. This might also fall under the category  Minimalism as Simple Geometry as there are a lot of lines and basic geometric shapes in the shot. Shooting this fully sharp from front to back required a high aperture and I shot it around F 8.0. Remember to keep your focus point roughly at 1/3rd of the total distance/depth of the frame to get everything mostly in focus. I kept the focus point on the left, between the 2nd and 3rd zigzag. Hope you enjoyed the shot and I send you all seasons greetings all the way from Jaipur- India. 

PS: Don;t forget to check out my new venture on Instagram the "Learn Minimalism" and the hashtag that I started there  #LearnMinimalism

By using the hashtag you too can take part in the Minimalist Photography Contest. The page has more than 43,000 followers and about 2,30,000 photos in the hashtag and growing. A lot of effort has been put in to promote and spread Minimalism in Photography on a global level. This lesser known genre deserves to be spread and "I am doing my bit for it."