Minimalism in Photography; Why Does it Have Such Great Appeal

In photography minimalism based on the same general rules of minimalism in the other forms of arts.

Generally speaking, minimalism can be described as the art of “less is more”. Using fewer details in the

picture can actually draw the attention to the subject more easily and it can appear to be more intense

to the viewer. Having said this, it begs the question of why this is in fact the case. Most articles on the

subject deal with the aesthetic qualities of minimalist styles or are how to guides on the dealing with the

compositional approach. There are very few articles, if there are any at all, that deals with the reason for

the appeal of minimalistic art. In order to understand why there is such great appeal for minimalistic

images, we must understand the basic construct of the images followed by an understanding of how we

look at and see the world.

Basic Elements and Composition of Minimalist images

In minimalistic photography as in other media, the elements chosen carefully, the number of elements

should be kept to a minimum and they should also reflect something interesting, and or have an

inherent beauty. The composition makes every attempt not to include elements that can distract the

viewer from subject. That subject will be main point of focus with heavy use of negative space which

serves to accentuate the subject.

Simplicity is the key to minimalism in photography and the composition is derived from this point of

view. Concepts such as the golden mean, rule of thirds, use of color, depth of field, negative space,

balance, and so on, all have a strong impact on the image and therefore must also be considered.

How We See the World

For me the strong appeal of minimalist images comes from how we see the world. Our eyes are very

simple organs with a lens that focuses the light on the retina, which is transformed into a signal that the

brain interprets. It is in the brain where the magic happens, it filters what we see and controls the

functioning of the eye, it controls the focus, the amount of light hitting the retina, and the focal plane in

which we are looking. The brain is also a fantastic filter, if you have ever taken a photograph and the

result is not what you expected, there are elements in the image that you did not really notice when you

were taking the picture but jump out at you in the final rendered image, then you get an idea of what I

am talking about. Our brain focuses our attention to the specific subject we are looking at, on the other

hand camera’s capture everything and we only realize this once we see the image.

Our brains do a lot of filtering on our behalf and as a result we are able to focus in on the important

elements, this is the reason we can read. Take a look at a page of text in its entirety; initially you will see

shapes of the paragraphs, the lines and then the text. Only after this do you start seeing the words, the

brain is focusing on what the important elements are. When you are reading you only see the words or

groups of words and lose perspective on the page and the paragraph. When we are looking at the world

the same type of filtering goes on, that is why we end up with pictures that have extraneous elements in

them that we did not realize were there.

Imagine now that the filtering, to a large extent has been done in advance of our seeing an image or

scene. The brain will automatically take you directly to the point of interest, without the interaction with

white noise and clutter of the world, allowing us to focus in on the details of the subject. This is a very

powerful; the associations our brains make now can allow it to invoke powerful feelings and intellectual

responses that may not have been as easily derived due to the “white noise”, the distractions.

Minimalist images are very appealing to us because it allows us to see and it invokes feelings resulting

from reduced distraction.

The Appeal of Minimalism

Minimalism has great appeal in most art forms, from sculpture to photographs, as well as in

performance art. The appeal has everything to do with how our brains function as a filtering system to

eliminate anything but the essential and look for order in the world. The best minimalistic images are

those that have provide the viewer with a filtered image that has order and order is achieved through

the use of different compositional techniques. A good photographer is able to moderate the brain’s

filter in order to see the distractions so that he/she can adapt the image to deal with them, rather than

to shoot and hope for a lucky shot or to edit them out later.

By Marc Neal

By Marc Neal

By Marc Neal

By Axel http://www.photodom.com/member/axel_ivc

By MICHAEL BURLAK

By YAROSLAV ANNENKOV