Simplicity is not the same as minimalist. And minimal is not the same as minimalism.
Often times merely reducing something is good and healthy to the overall effect you want to produce. Diets aren't rocket science, you need only eat less of a balanced intake to lose weight. But if you have a poor intake, the wrong things, merely reducing the intake will not always lead to weight loss or even health.
Reduction is a good first step when thinking about expressions and art in particular. But sometimes busy and complicated is exactly the statement that is required to expose the point or the view you wish to convey.
There is beauty in both simplicity and complexity. The density of an image does not always define its worth, merit, or impact.
Often times merely reducing something is good and healthy to the overall effect you want to produce. Diets aren't rocket science, you need only eat less of a balanced intake to lose weight. But if you have a poor intake, the wrong things, merely reducing the intake will not always lead to weight loss or even health.
Reduction is a good first step when thinking about expressions and art in particular. But sometimes busy and complicated is exactly the statement that is required to expose the point or the view you wish to convey.
There is beauty in both simplicity and complexity. The density of an image does not always define its worth, merit, or impact.
Begin first with what you are trying to create, or to say. Then begin to understand the basic forms and functions you are working with. What are the lines? The curves? What supports the construction and the composition?
Now...what can you reduce or simplify to better expose and express those basic forms and functions?
When I take a portrait, I first begin with conversation. I need to see behind the face into something else, a kind of ether where the person is both formed and unformed. Too often we put on a mask for a photo, and those are the head shots we see and immediately dismiss or distrust. That is what we instinctively consider "posed."
I believe, perhaps foolishly, that there is beauty within each subject, and that if I can see it myself, I can attempt to show it with the camera.
For a portrait the basic form is the light of that persons soul, usually expressed through the eyes. And it is to them that I look.
There are a thousand tricks to make eyes "attractive" and "appealing" and I will always set lights to flatter and shape a face. But there is something more compelling than the shape of catchlights and the density of shadows and harshness of their edges. Those are all elements. But to focus on them is to miss the essential nature of the person.
The portriat is therefore a conservation between me and the subject; the lens is merely there to record a slice of a moment. I feel like it's not trying to take one good photo, and more about trying not to take a hundred uninspired ones. Sometimes it's more important not to press the shutter than to do so.
Now...what can you reduce or simplify to better expose and express those basic forms and functions?
When I take a portrait, I first begin with conversation. I need to see behind the face into something else, a kind of ether where the person is both formed and unformed. Too often we put on a mask for a photo, and those are the head shots we see and immediately dismiss or distrust. That is what we instinctively consider "posed."
I believe, perhaps foolishly, that there is beauty within each subject, and that if I can see it myself, I can attempt to show it with the camera.
For a portrait the basic form is the light of that persons soul, usually expressed through the eyes. And it is to them that I look.
There are a thousand tricks to make eyes "attractive" and "appealing" and I will always set lights to flatter and shape a face. But there is something more compelling than the shape of catchlights and the density of shadows and harshness of their edges. Those are all elements. But to focus on them is to miss the essential nature of the person.
The portriat is therefore a conservation between me and the subject; the lens is merely there to record a slice of a moment. I feel like it's not trying to take one good photo, and more about trying not to take a hundred uninspired ones. Sometimes it's more important not to press the shutter than to do so.
All frames are lies in search of truth...
You can and should read a hundred and one books on composition and framing and all the classical rules for each. Study masters. Study amateurs. Study nature. But keep in mind what your essential form and function is.
I love darkness and the play of light and shadow within it. I love the shape of negative space and the way a figure or form interupts and contains it. I look first to an empty frame and wonder what I can strip away from it to create something inspiring. Those are my essence, and I may take a thousand commissioned shots for a thousand other people, but that essence will remain and speak through.
As much as we want to take wonderful frames every time, or create something inspiring each time we sit down to an empty page, it is only thorough doing a thing that we may ever come to understand the essence of what we do...and of who we are while doing it.
I love darkness and the play of light and shadow within it. I love the shape of negative space and the way a figure or form interupts and contains it. I look first to an empty frame and wonder what I can strip away from it to create something inspiring. Those are my essence, and I may take a thousand commissioned shots for a thousand other people, but that essence will remain and speak through.
As much as we want to take wonderful frames every time, or create something inspiring each time we sit down to an empty page, it is only thorough doing a thing that we may ever come to understand the essence of what we do...and of who we are while doing it.
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