Light Shadow Lines Architecture

Minimalism as Simple Geometry

Photo By © Prakash Ghai
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Light Shadow Lines Architecture, is not a Minimalist Title, I agree :)

But, the Photo Definitely is. I chose such a title, so that it becomes easier for the blog followers to immediately comprehend the elements within the Minimalist Photograph.

The Photograph falls under the Minimalism as Simple Geometry Category. The Subject being, primarily just the Lines. That's the Simple Geometry here.

And again this a Look-up Minimal Shot here, taken from my 100mm Canon Prime Macro L Lens.

I'd keep it short today, as I have other thoughts to ponder on after this. 

Hope you liked the Minimalist Explanation :)

Have a great day ahead.

A Gentle Reminder: There is a "Buy Photo" option under each photograph posted on this blog. Alternatively, you can visit this link "Buy Minimalist Photos" 

If you like the photograph above, please recommend this or any other from the blog/gallery, to a probable buyer. 

I have put in a lot of effort here. A little support from you, would be most cherished :) 

Thank you !

The Missing Window Pane

Minimalism as in Repeating Shapes

Photo  By © Prakash Ghai

Though I have titled this photo as The Missing Window Pane, I also have another interpretation of it.

I looked for a meaning for this photograph within my Sub-conscious mind. When I did, I realized this relates to my real life story. 

I had a girl friend back in 2003, with whom I were to get married. But since she was elder to me by a couple of years and was already working, things did not work out the way I had thought. Her parents wanted her to get married asap but I had plan to fly to Bangalore for my MBA Degree. 

I was left with a tough choice, whether to fly to Bangalore for higher education or Simply Marry her. I chose to get a Degree, based on the assumption that its true love and she would happily wait. 

But, since I moved to a far off location from my city, our relationship turned into a long distance one. 

Soon, there were misunderstandings and many a times I flew back home to clarify. But one day it all ended abruptly. We had a big misunderstanding, which I could not sort out. Along with that, her ego got hurt. I kept asking her to give me One Last Chance to Clarify and Explain, but She refused. 

The Missing Window Pane above is that Missing Last Chance, she never gave me. If she had, life would have been different.  

That said, I would like to thank her as well, as This art i.e. Minimalist Photography, that I do today, is because of her.

OK, Long emotional story ! NO 

I have long forgotten her for good :) I have learned to move-on. 

Move-on, just reminded me to move-on quickly to the Composition.

Composition Highlights 

The Shot above Falls under the Minimalism as in Repeating Shapes Category of Minimalist Photography. What made me click this shot, was the one Missing Window Pane. 

It broke the repetition very beautifully.

Also the Reflections in the window creates nice visual abstraction. It somewhat sparks a feeling of nostalgia. 

Another way to look at the picture is In Terms of Shapes. These are 4 Vertical Rectangles in Repetition.

The One Curve made my the Electrical Wire coming out from the 3rd Missing Window Pane, also breaks nicely the visual symmetry.

So, Those were the Photo Highlights. Hope that you enjoyed the Shot. 

See you around next time ! Comments and Feedback Welcomed !

PS: ...by the way this photograph deserves a poem (well..more than a haiku).  If I was a poet, I would have written one.

Related Posts:

• Broken Window Pane
• Two Window Panes

The Pink Curve

Minimalism as Less Elements

Photo By © Prakash Ghai 
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Curves are beautiful and they are even more attractive when accompanied by the Pink color. 

Pink as a color, is also closely associated with: Freshness, Youth, Love, Beauty, Femininity etc.

Curves on the other hand find extensive use in Modern Design. They play an important role today in Automobile Design, Furniture Design, Glass-wear,  Product Design etc. 

A Combination of the two is way to tempting to ignore. For example the Pink iPhone 6s. That particular color of the iPhone had way too much demand and was quick to go out of stock at India's largest e-Tailer Flipkart

 

Composition of the Photo

The photo falls under the Minimalism as Less Elements category. There is only one element in the frame i.e The Pink Curve. This a look-up shot taken at a very close range via Canon 50mm F1.4 Lens. The closeness helped me eliminate any distracting elements from the frame and enabled me to achieve extremely narrowed focus on the subject and enhanced visual clarity. 

The One-tone Minimalism is one of the best kinds of Minimalism in Photography. It ends up being fairly soothing and appealing to the eye. Go find a large single colored wall, then look for geometry and shapes on it. Keep your eyes wide open. It is easy to ignore such plain simple walls. 

Even white walls are good and if you do not like the color, you could always convert the photo into black and white and thus add an artistic feel to it.

If you have any similar mono-tone Minimalist Photos with you, please do share a link to them in the comments section below.  Don't forget to subscribe to our blog posts. Enter your e-mail Id in the box on the top right corner.

Thank You ! 

Have a nice day Photographers / Readers.

Other Posts that include curves:

Twins from the Left

Repeating Curves

Low Hanging Twig Of A Plant Against A Red Wall

Minimalism as Less Elements

Photo By © Prakash Ghai
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A  Minimalist Photograph of a Low Hanging Twig Of a Plant against a Red Wall.

Today, I would like to keep the write-up very Minimal. 

This Minimalist Photograph of "The Low hanging dry twig of a plant against the textured red Indian wall", narrates a story/poem on its own. Much has been experienced by the Dry Twig and words lose strength in front of such Photographs. The life and struggles are self-explanatory here.

To capture such a photograph, I first searched for a Red Wall. Then I looked for objects that I could contrast against it.

Green plants/leaves act as very good subjects for such kind of a backdrop but today I chose a Dry Twig

This Shot was taken at Geejgarh Vihar colony, Jaipur on 19th June 2016 with Canon 600D via Canon 50mm 1.4 prime lens. Time: approximately 5.00 pm

If you liked the Style of the Minimalism, please up-vote this Photograph by sharing it on one of your social media accounts.

Thank You - Have a Nice Day / Evening

Other Minimalist Photos with Red as a primary color:

- Open Door and Water Outlet on a Red Wall

- Love Story

- Challenging Circumstances

Hanging Iron Chain On A Rusty Textured Background

Minimalism as Less Elements

Photo By © Prakash Ghai
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Sometimes, you are in a phase of life, where you feel very low on self esteem and confidence. Also you begin to think that, all is very gloomy and life is kind of over. You draw conclusions way too early and talk of completely giving up without realizing, that this is just a phase of life. I have met many people who talk or assume the same, most of them in their mid-thirties. I would say such phases of life come and go. Life overall, is a combination of ups and downs and in the long run everyone experiences roughly the same joys and sorrow, only the form of in which they occur or are experienced might be different and therefore people do not realize it. When some people face difficult times, they tend to forget about their strong and positive points. There is a saying which goes "This too shall pass" and trust me it eventually does, all that one need to do is to have patience and some hope to sail through.

The photo above depicts a similar sort of a phase, where the un-rusted iron chain (which believes it too has got rusted) or that mid-thirties person, has forgotten that he is capable enough to sail through bad times. The rust in the background or the negative circumstances has overwhelmed him.

Well, lets get back with the composition now. It is fairly easy to comprehend that this is Minimalism as Less Elements with just two main elements in the frame. One being the chain and the other, the textured rusty metal background. For the ones interested in the technicals, here is the EXIF data.

• Camera Make: Canon 
• Camera Model: Canon EOS 600D
• ISO speed: ISO-100
• F-stop: f/4.5
• Exposure Time: 1/125 sec
• Exposure bias: 0 step

Hope you enjoyed the photo. 

Feel free to share this via one of the social media sharing buttons on the left. 

Thank you.

Grainy Minimalism Arcs within Arcs

Minimalism as Less Elements

Photo By © Prakash Ghai
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A Minimalist Photo of Arcs within Arcs shot at Amber Fort, Jaipur

With this Grainy Minimalist Photo I want to make a point. But first, let me Ask you a Question.

Tell me, Why any Artist who paints or draws anything is acceptable art?

Whereas, If a Photographer experiments too much and crosses certain technical boundaries, then his work becomes unacceptable and it is quickly disregarded by people? 

Why the bias?  Isn't Photography Art too? Isn't the Man/Woman behind the camera, an artist as well?

An artist can doodle, make a collage, scribble, produce abstract artworks or do what ever he or she likes, But a Photographer has to follow certain rules or else people start saying things like "This is not Photography."

Most leading magazines, Photography competitions, stock photography websites, mostly do not accept photos that have grain, blur and other technical errors in them, whether on purpose or not on purpose. 

My question is, why not? 

Sometimes with grains and blur the photos look brilliant but since they do not fall under the technical bracket of "right photography", either such photos get mostly rejected by the Top Photographers/Editors etc. or the photographer himself deletes them, and later never produce newer ones.

What most Top Magazine Editors/Stock Photography site/Photography Jury/Mentors always select and promote is the same old Landscape pictures that include waterfalls, sunsets etc. 

HOW BORING is that? where is the variety? There isn't any.

(Note: In the art fraternity grainy and blurry photos are appreciated to some extent but it still needs a wider audience. On the other hand, in commercial photography, it is almost a complete NO.)

So, The Million Dollar Question is:

"Why is Photography mostly judged on the technical aspects rather than the artistic aspects?"

For example, In photography it is generally recommended that one should almost never take a shot above the ISO setting range of 400-800 in a Crop Sensor camera. If there is low light and if you don't have an expensive camera that gives less grain on high ISO setting, then you lose the shot. Photographers miss many great compositions because of this. They know even if they take the shot at a high ISO setting to capture the composition, everyone's first reaction would be "No, the ISO is too high. so many grains in the photo, forget about the composition, the shot is over."

Then to follow up, they end up recommending you a high priced full-frame camera which might eat up an entire year of your savings.

My problem is with their reaction. Their ideal reaction should be "Wow, what a lovely composition. Forget about the grains. Composition rules, you have a great vision. Well done."

But, this never happens. So what I have personally noticed is that the photographers who can afford the expensive cameras, always tend to suppress the creative photographers who can compose good shots but do not have the resources to upgrade to better cameras. The de-motivation eventually pushes the creative photographer out and that is the reason we keep seeing sunset, sunrises, mountains, waterfall photos over and over and over again.

Anyways, this could go on and on but by now, I am sure you understood the point I wanted to make. 

Back to the Minimalist Photograph 

The shot falls under the Minimalism as Less Elements category of Minimalist Photography. The only subject here is the White Arcs in Repetition. 

The grains add the artistic touch to the photo and that is the highlight of the shot. Without the grains, the photo loses most of its appeal. I had this shot in my PC for over 1 and a half years, but I never posted it on my website/blog because it had grains, I too was not sure of it initially. I kept the shot saved because I believed the composition was decent. Now, when I looked at it today, I felt like posting this and making a point.  

To concluded I would say "Art is art, the medium can be anything and people should value the photographers expression and vision."

Grains are Good - Happy Clicking !

Note: If you have captured some Grainy Minimalist Photographs or any grainy Photographs, post them in the comments section. IF you can't post them maybe share a link or two. I would be happy to take a look at your creativity. 

The positives of negative space

Minimalism as Less Elements

Photo By © Prakash Ghai
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This is a Look-up shot, taken on the streets from a side angle. The cut in the wall got highlighted in bold due to its shadow during the afternoon, thanks to the bright hot Sun. I zoomed right in from about a distance of 50 feet odd and placed to cut on the extreme left, leaving negative space on the right. Negative space Minimalism with singular subjects is the best example of Minimalism as Less Elements. Tough to edit but I think I managed it pretty well. The wall was yellow to begin with but when I tried it in monochrome, it looked much better.

The image here is used to convey an important message, and the is message is "Less clutter = Less Stress" and thus a more peaceful and calm state of mind. I have titled it "The positives of Negative Space" where negative space is the space created by doing away with the unused, unwanted or the unnecessary and the focus stays therefore, solely on what is important. For example, you have 30 mobile applications on your cellphone but you only use 5 of them actively. The ideal thing to do then is to remove the unwanted 25 apps from your phone or in other words de-clutter. You would hence get less irritated and would use your phone in some limits. This is just one example.

Similarly, you can do away with the unwanted clothes that you have in your wardrobe. You can also remove furniture that is used rarely from your room as well. So that way you can create some negative or empty space visually and get accustomed to it. This could well be a precursor for actual meditation of the mind. Some people are just not used to "No Thoughts". They think a lot and therefore they are never able to meditate. Once they get used to some open empty space in real life they would feel a bit more comfortable with lesser thoughts in their minds to begin with and eventually None. Meditation has huge benefits and they are very well known to everyone.

Minimalist Photography Video Part - I

A Video slideshow / collection of select Minimalist Photographs.

Every now and then I make a compilation of Minimalist Photographs that I have posted in the past. on this blog. After carefully curating some of the best Minimalist Photographs I create a Video Slideshow of them and post them as a Video on my YouTube Channel. It is a series that I wish to continue.

You can subscribe to my Minimalist Photography YouTube Channel here: Subscribe to PrakashGhai YouTube Channel 

Minimalist Photography Video Part - I

           

© Prakash Ghai  

- Minimalist Photography Video Part - II

- Minimalist Photography Video Part - III

- Types of Minimalism