Rectangle or a Square?

Minimalism as Parts of the Whole

Black and White Minimalist Photography By © Prakash Ghai
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Black and white Minimalism is the most appealing Minimalism Style in Minimal Art Photography 

These images look even Simpler than regular Minimalism, but are way tougher to produce. One needs to be very good in black and white photo editing. The permutations and combinations of blacks, whites, and grays run into thousands with very subtle variations and you would never know where to stop.

Hint: Follow your sub-conscious mind for the best combination.

As you can see, I have clipped a part of a rectangular shape and showed its juxtaposition with another geometric shape i.e the cylinder.

Wait, did I just mention a rectangle? It can be a square too, isn't it? yes that's right, That's how the viewer would think if I dint tell them about the geometrical shape I clicked. This is the fun part of Parts of the whole Minimalism in Minimalist Photography. The mystery always remains. It is not very hard to compose this shot. Just switch on the LCD screen view of your DSLR and apply the 3x3 grid on the preview. Sample frame the shot and stop where you think it just looks fine. Shooting vertical to adds a bit of freshness as we generally tend to see landscape shots.

Rusty Entrance Gate

Minimalism as in Repeating Shapes

Minimalist Photography By © Prakash Ghai
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I went to the Diggi Malpura Fair with few of my friends. This, was the entrance gate for the Dainik Bhaskar exhibition held right next to the religious temple. We went in all excited and were expecting some great food and beverages, but we forgot to take a clue from the entrance gate. The Entrace Gate was full of rust. Rust also means unkempt, deserted and that too was the case with the exhibition. Only a handful of people inside, nothing to eat, very messy and not even water to drink. The learning that we got that day was that Entrance Gates also tell a lot about people around and how well taken care of the place could be.

A word on the Composition of the Rusty Entrance Gate

 
To take this shot I moved a little to the left of the rusty gate. Some empty space has been left both on the top and on the right of the frame. That is the only way I could ad negative space here since I needed a close shot of the gate to show rust and yet keep the frame Minimalistic. Therefore I ended up in a way using, double rule of thirds but in reverse. In reverse, as instead of the Negative Space taking up 2/3rd of the space in the frame, the subject took it.

This shot had everything I could ask for, the primitive spade design, repetition, harsh sunlight, yellow wall and to top it all RUST. Hope you enjoyed the shot. Stay tuned. More Minimalistic Photos to follow.

Hypnotic Tree

Minimalism as Parts of the Whole

Minimalist Nature Photography By © Prakash Ghai
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Tree Against a White Wall, Minimalist Nature Photography

Me and my friend decided to meet for a street photography walk on a Sunday evening at about 6.30 pm. It was 3 pm afternoon when I had called him up and fixed the walk and I had the urge to go out in the sun and shoot minimal.

I mostly go alone for Minimal photo-walks are there aren't any Minimalists in my city and I have not heard of even one or two of them from my Country. OK, so I went to this temple in Vaishali Nagar, the Akshardham temple and I was telling myself, I have surely lost my mind to be even thinking of shooting Minimal here.

I roamed around for about 45 minutes but could not find anything. I knew my Sunday was wasted and I started to plan my next Sundays walk. While I was heading back from the temple I saw a man talking on his cellphone sitting right under this tree on the right. I decided that before leaving I should take at least one good shot, be it a street shot.

I kept that person on the extreme right and was composing a horizontal shot (not a vertical one), the tree you see was to be kept out of focus and I had planned to place it on top left. But, something stopped me from clicking that shot. I felt as if the Tree was calling me, trying to communicate with me, as If there was a message, I was instantly hypnotized. I kept admiring the tree for about 5 minutes. I was spell-bound and and I felt something entered my sub-conscious mind.

Maybe the message was communicated already and maybe I have been assigned the task to spread that message through this photo. Once It was clear why it was important for me to click this, the next challenge was to compose. A minimalist shot with a Tree as a subject is actually quite tough, "Parts of the Whole Minimalism" was the answer. I decided to shoot vertical to avoid the man and placed only a part of the Tree on top left so that the mystery about the tree and the message remains.

Other Minimalist Photos taken at Akshardham Temple, Jaipur

- The Triple Split

Even Circles are Non-perfect

Minimalism as Simple Geometry

Minimalist Photography By © Prakash Ghai
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When Even circles are non-perfect, how can one expect life to be flawless?

Circles are generally impeccable when it comes to their design. But here is one, which I found on my neighbors roof that does away with this perception. Of course, I am only talking of the symbolic message here (circles can be perfect of course, if you do not look at the ones that I post.)

All that I want to say is, that it is a futile exercise trying to make or even dream of a Perfect Life. Life is messy and you cannot change that. "No you can't". All that you can do to live peacefully and accept what comes your way without asking any questions.

The Composition

To compose. I placed the circle on the left and used the edge of the building on the right to create a vertical rectangle. This helped me to show juxtaposition between two simple geometric forms.

a) The Circle
b) The Rectangle

and because of the Simple Geometric shapes and the use of Less Elements, this photo falls under the Minimalism as Simple Geometry category.

Curves are Beautiful

Minimalism as Less Elements

Minimalist Photography By © Prakash Ghai
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This photo give us another reason to have a good zoom lens in our camera kit. Such photos cannot be clicked with most short range prime lenses or wide angle lenses or with even the basic kit lens 18-55 mm that comes with the camera. The major drawback with zoom lenses is the drop in quality as you zoom. Therefore, you need to be very good at editing. I use about 3-4 editing softwares to edit my photos and it took me a good year to learn them. Alternatively, you can also buy those ultra expensive high quality zoom lenses like the 70-200 mm, if they fit your budget.

Ok, Lets get beck to the photo. I spotted this window to right, near the roof of a design institute located in Vaishali Nagar - Jaipur. The sharp edgy curves and the near perfect finish really impressed me.

Curves are always beautiful to look at and I am sure we all agree on that.

More on the Minimalist Composition 

I zoomed in on my Canon 55-250 mm lens, all the way close to the 250 mm range. This helped me to do away with the unwanted elements and shift and focus attention to just the geometric curvy window. Therefore, the photo has been categorized under the Minimalism Category: Minimalism as Less Elements. It was very tempting to place the window in the center, but I placed it slightly to the left, we all know that most centered photos loose a lot of their appeal and feel.


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