Keep it Simple – A Guide to Minimalist Photography | Hacker News Reader

Keep it Simple – A Guide to Minimalist Photography

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55 pointsjonphillips0625 comments

Minimalism != Simple

This is a highly stylistic aesthetic, and the 'technique' seems gimicky. For better photographs, learn the basics of compositions and how color / size influence weight in a picture.

Two hours with this book and you will be most of the way there! http://www.amazon.com/Design-Basics-Index-Jim-Krause/dp/1581...

Seriously. I came here to say almost exactly this. If you go to something like http://reddit.com/r/minimalism, you can find more examples of "minimalism".

Indeed these photos and the techniques are gimmicky – basically amateur/advertising-level work, or a kind of soulless copy of mid-20th century minimalism. If you want to take good photographs, study actual fine artists, not blogs. Stay away from Flickr. Follow actual contemporary artists on Instagram. However, if you want to make backdrops for hipster startup home pages, then by all means.

Some resources:

- any 'History of Western Art' book

- any 'History of Photography' book

- http://www.contemporaryartdaily.com/category/exhibitions/

- http://we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/photography/

- http://www.art21.org/artists

- http://www.vvork.com/

Do you have some Instagram usernames of good photographers?

http://instagram.com/joemcnallyphoto/

I assume that is just where he posts some fun throw-away pics.

Thanks!

Some of my friends / friends-of-friends:

- http://instagram.com/msutherl (me)

- http://instagram.com/wenjunliang

- http://instagram.com/alex_steckly

- http://instagram.com/timothytickle

- http://instagram.com/nycisa

- http://instagram.com/rdriana

- http://instagram.com/xt_marie

- http://instagram.com/rypat

Easy to find more by seeing who likes these images or by seeing who these people follow.

If I seriously wanted to learn about photography, I wouldn't look at instagram (over-saturation, higher contrast... in other words, a lack of subtlety). That sounds much more akin to backdrops for hipster startup home pages and blogs.

If I wanted to take good photographs, I would practice photography a whole lot. Then read a little bit. Then practice a whole lot. Then read a little bit.

Reading about photography can never match the practice of photography (but it can help... a little bit). I would also shoot film (many in photography school talk about the "film mindset"). You need to believe that your photos are a limited resource and therefore save each shot for the best moments. "Spraying and praying" with digital rarely comes out with anything good.

And now for some shameless self promotion: www.stillthrill.com

> If I seriously wanted to learn about photography, I wouldn't look at instagram (over-saturation, higher contrast... in other words, a lack of subtlety). That sounds much more akin to backdrops for hipster startup home pages and blogs.

I won't argue that there's a lack of subtlety in Instagram, but I wish you wouldn't brush it off so contemptuously. I don't consider myself much of a photographer, mainly due to lack of practice/desire to practice. But I like Instagram because I can take a picture of something my friends will find funny, a car that another friend will find interesting, or something I can tell a story about. I find that my Instagrams end up being higher quality pictures, more consistenly, than pictures I take just for the sake of taking a picture. So for me Instagram isn't just pictures, it's pictures that I can tell a story about, when I whip my phone out at a party. A different art form altogether.

I could agree with that. I use instagram as well and like it for the reasons you mentioned. But what your hitting upon is that it's not necessarily photography, but more a social experience. As you put it:

>A different art form altogether.

So I don't think it should be categorized as photography. And you mentioned that looking at it was a good way to learn how to be a photographer. Which I still don't think it is.

The greatest photographers (those who we should be studying) did not use instagram. And for the highly skilled contemporaries that do use instagram, I highly doubt they post their best on the service.

Here's a collection of some favorite images from my Instagram feed over the last 9 months or so: http://x.are.na/SekSZPT. I'm not sure if you would find them un-subtle, but they are certainly on the whole neither over-saturated nor overly contrasty.

Edit: seems Arena is having this content loading bug again. If you click on the grey blocks, there's an overly and you can step through like a presentation.

Could not agree more! Even if this is not easy to achieve you always need to repeat that KISS motto in your head while looking through the viewfinder. I believe so much in this principle that this great quote from Charles Mingus is the first sentence of my artist statement [1]: "Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity". And the photographer author of that article nailed it when she wrote: "Minimalist photography attempts to explore how much information can be taken away from a composition, before it loses its impact".

[1] http://www.jeffmerlet.com/resume

I also like this quote from Antoine de Saint Exupéry: "Il semble que la perfection soit atteinte non quand il n'y a plus rien à ajouter, mais quand il n'y a plus rien à retrancher", which can be translated as: "Perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away".

I feel that way about code too. I love getting rid of stuff that's overly complex or unnecessary without compromising useful functionality.

Nice pictures, but these are highly constructed.

Have a look at William Christenberry's Box Brownie photographs [1] (and his subsequent models of the buildings).

Also Tartovksy's [2] and Evans' [3] Polaroid photos. Not Tartovsky's portraits but the building details.

I imagine it is a question of definitions.

Meta: trying to pass on a Google Image search string results in epic URLs.

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=William+Christenberry&client...

[2] https://www.google.com/search?q=William+Christenberry&client...

[3] https://www.google.com/search?q=William+Christenberry&client...

*Tarkovsky.

Damn that Google spelling correction. I can't edit the original now either. Thanks

I agree. I was disappointed that they emphasized minimalism with light, shadow, composition etc but then made these photos to look heavily post-processed. Much too much contrast here.

So much of the difference between a great photo and an OK photo is simplicity. Even in a casual snapshot, walk around a little and try to block undesirable background details with desirable foreground. Try to surround faces with a solid area of color. I often find that, by the time I have put the subject in good light and found an angle that blocks background noise, my photo has composed itself.

Most of these seem like classic stock photos. They are certainly technically competent, but the collection (and the instructions) are more about style than the art of minimalism.

Then again, a blog would be hard pressed to teach the art.

For inspiration and a guide, I prefer to browse through collections of great photographers than from random flickr users. For this I love sites like http://triangletriangle.com, which often features photographers that are excellent at minimalist composition.

"The goal of minimalist art, or photography, is to convey a concept – or an idea – provoke an emotional response, or provide a unique visual experience. Compositional elements must be kept to a minimum, and the ones that are left should be essential for conveying the overall idea, or symbolism, of the photo."

My understanding was always that capital M Minimalism (which this article refers to) was about the objective exploration of form and material - ie specifically free of symbolism, representation and implied meaning

A photographer friend of mine once told me that "photography is the art of subtraction". Some on this thread may argue that the reference to minimalism in the title of the blog post is not accurate. However, when compared to the vast majority of photos that you see "real people" create, they could almost always benefit from some of the ideas shown in this post.

Edit: some really great ideas about photography can be found in Galen Rowell's excellent Inner Game of Outdoor Photography collection of essays.

The headline made me think I was going to read something about cell phone photography, or maybe carrying around a 35mm film camera loaded with a roll of black and white film. But, instead, the word "minimalist" is being used to describe considerations you should have with every photograph you make. And the photos are not what I'd select to demonstrate the concepts described.

The very second photo--the one of the stairs--I instantly wanted to re-crop. I want to crop it in a portrait format with the side walls almost if not completely removed.

I agree with the other commentors who question the decision to call these images "minimalist".

In my opinion, it's much like a photographer's style rather than photograph technique. Say, I'm more interested in colorful object and crowded object. How can crowded is minimal?

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