09-09-09 – Farktography Classic: Less is More 2

To add (?) to U-Man, if the leaves were more bokehed, I think it’d be a much better shot for this contest. I really, really like it in general but the leaves detract from the subject, I think.

But also, I’m not an art critic by any means. And, I suspect at least one of my entries will seem ‘busy’ to some as it’s panning out.

Ok. Gotcha. That’s about as simple as I have them here, so I will just have to look for something else. I can’t recreate the picture because that one was taken last year and those flowers only come out in the spring. I tried to crop it so that it was mostly just the green of the leaves and then the trillium bud, but I wasn’t happy with that because I thought too much of the picture was then taken up by the bud.

Thank you for the direction.

Sleeping’s quick minimalism guidelines:

1) The subject should be either quite small, or very simple (geometric shapes, simple repeating patterns etc)
2) The background should be simple/plain (sky and water are often good, snow is just about perfect, but bokeh often doesn’t work as well as you might think)
3) The subject and background should be distinctly different
4) Fewer colors = more minimal (but they don’t have to be black and white)

and some, but not necessarily all these elements.
/some of mine won’t have backgrounds this week

For sure. They’re not not the One True Path to minimalism, either, but I think they ought to work. But making that into a good photo on the other hand is not necessarily easy…

and some, but not necessarily all these elements.
/some of mine won’t have backgrounds this week

For sure. They’re not not the One True Path to minimalism, either, but I think they ought to work. But making that into a good photo on the other hand is not necessarily easy…

oh, absolutely not. But it’s definitely a good way to start thinking, and some good general ‘rules’ (if there be such a thing)
*edited to add: I said nearly the same thing to someone earlier that refuses to come to the .net threads for whatever reason. Before I saw your post.

I’ve twisted my head in a know because it’s a broad idea with very loose rules. It’s definitely been fun though, and I hope this contest is a hit.

U-Man, do you have a light box? I’d start there, and maybe add a sheer cloth on top to make it more diffuse. Then start moving lights around so they don’t reflect :/

Somewhat interesting. http://www.tabletopstudio.com/documents/glass_photography.htm

U-Man, try diffusing your flash more. some low-budget diffusers that I have used include circles of 1-gallon milk jugs (you can stack them for more and more diffusing) or even just kleenex/white tissue paper over the flash.

What do y’all think of this for the minimalism theme? It was taken on a damned cold day, directly into the winter sun, which was filtered by fog. The ocean surface is frozen, somewhat, which is why it seems like there is a hill leading to the two small boats, which had guys breaking ice away from salmon hatchery stuff. This is a color photo.

http://sacredartichoke.com/coppermine/albums/08-25-2009-random/IMG_4801.jpg

I like this one, too, but not sure if it’s minimalist enough.

http://sacredartichoke.com/coppermine/albums/02-14-2009/IMG_1128.jpg

This guys work is what I think of when I think minimalist and is what I am using as a template for this week.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/minimalists/pool/88345903@N00/

interesting stuff. to my mind the trick with those kinds of photographs is to make them compelling. some of his are and some are not. not really criticizing too much, i’m in no position to throw stones lol. I don’t think I could put into words where that line is that makes something remain minimal and yet not be soooo abstract as to fail to engage the viewer. I suspect I’m going to err on the other side 😉