Teach you how to take photos in Wong Kar-wai style.

Lead: Through a lot of movie-watching experience and self-reflection, the essence of Wong Kar-wai's film photography should be its light, shadow, color and unique vision, combined with complex character relationships and intricate emotional storylines, to create such a touching atmosphere. As lovers, we must make considerable efforts in photography, vision and stories to get closer to Wang Dao's great works. Let's have a look!

Teach you how to take photos in Wong Kar-wai style.

First, the choice of preparation scene

1, shooting preparation

I've been upgrading my equipment from D90 to D700 in Quan Huafu, and then I'll continue to use a fixed-focus lens with high cost performance and good composition skills. However, the costume props of this shooting scene are constantly changing. With the assistant present and friends who contacted in advance, I am glad to come as drivers and take us to various shooting scenes, and I can get a lot of help. Without him, we would have to take buses or taxis all the time, which requires great efforts, so this place is very special.

2. The idea of shooting

Because the core idea of this Wong Kar-wai film is shooting in multiple locations, and only a few photos are selected from each scene to get the complete effect of the whole group of photos, before shooting, I stepped on all the places I have been to during the basic shooting in advance, or paid special attention when passing by, to ensure that the chain will not fall off because there is no suitable place on the shooting day. Secondly, make a simple plan before shooting, including where to take pictures, write them on paper and add some keywords. Because there are many things to consider before and after the shooting process, it is also a good choice to have this note as a temporary memo and itinerary. After that, you will find that you feel a bit like a director. With these little gratifications and enthusiasm for Wang Dao, you will get twice the result with half the effort.

3. Scene selection

The choice of the scene is mainly based on the needs of the story and the model's clothing. The shooting locations of this group of works include residence, roof, car, riverside, subway station and so on, all of which are scenes drawn up to express the inner world of the model.

Second, color matching and the use of light and shadow

1. What metering method is used in low light environment?

In low light environment, you can take a few photos with A file to see the film effect while keeping the aperture larger and the sensitivity within the range of 400~800. When the environment is basically unchanged, you can properly expose and switch to M file.

2 how to accurately expose?

In fact, I don't think the exposure is absolutely accurate or not, and it is acceptable within a suitable range. More exposure or less exposure will get different artistic conception. The most important thing is to see what kind of atmosphere photos photographers need.

3. How to use the only light source to highlight people in low light environment?

I think the problem of highlighting people will be encountered in any shooting, but it is even more difficult in low light. My experience is that as a photographer, we must first interpret the source, location and direction of ambient light, and think about the places that need to be selected in the whole scene and the most suitable places for the characters, in order to achieve the ideal effect. Experience is very important. Take more photos and summarize more. There is no shortcut to taking good photos.

4. How to control the light to achieve the film effect?

Wong Kar-wai's films have excellent control over color and light and shadow. If we amateurs want to simulate this effect, the first thing we can do is to choose a scene with relatively many colors and strong contrast, and then choose a place with strong light contrast. My experience is that under the condition of low light, the photos will be more colorful and "Wong Kar-wai".

With regard to Wang Dao's films, we should pay special attention to the application of various prospects, which will add a sense of space and layering to the photos, and the simulation of film sense will also receive miraculous effects. Friends who agree with this must make good use of it.

Third, the shooting angle and mode shift.

1, first look at the comparison between the two films.

Compared with the second part, from the overall body language of the model, the first part is not full of emotion, and the selected scene is more complicated, which does not play a good role in setting off the psychological state of the characters, so it was abandoned. The mirror effect of the window of the latter part suggests the complex mood of the protagonist and is more suitable for the theme.

2. Watch the next movie.

The shooting field of vision is to shoot the model sitting in the driver's seat from the gap of the semi-open back door. The natural foreground formed by doors and seats adds a sense of spatial layering to the work, while the picture of the model looking directly at the camera with a cigarette gives readers a powerful dialogue effect, and the fuzzy lighting effect at night also adds a lot of color to the artistic conception to be expressed in the work.

In the sparkling river, there are many junk food and drinks that have not been eaten, so that models can look at the distance while eating. I believe there will be a strong sense of substitution for a group of young people.

The scene is chosen on the rooftop of a residential building, with a stack of paper planes as props, so that the model can fly paper planes continuously, and capture some pictures in the process, and then reflect the inner world of the model with the deformation effect of the ultra-wide lens (borrowed from a friend's machine). This technique is often seen in the movie fallen angels, but the stretching effect of the ultra-wide lens is difficult to control in portrait photography. I think it takes more practice to master this "degree".

Fourth, share later.

Post-purpose: The post-purpose is to create a suitable atmosphere for the whole group of photos, and don't gild the lily. In fact, I advocate the idea of light later stage. The higher the level, the better the original film, and the less need for post-production. However, due to the limited level and conditions, the unsatisfactory exposure and tone need to be adjusted appropriately.

Firstly, use the curve tool to raise the bright part and lower the dark part to get the contrast effect.

The effect is not strong enough. Copy another layer of the same adjustment layer.

Then use the color balance tool to change the tone of the photo.

Then use the curve tool to drag the lower left point up a little to brighten the dark part and increase the gray level. Personally, it feels more like a movie tone.

Then, the "weakness" of the notebook display is turned into "advantage" by taking photos with the mobile phone, that is, the low image quality and color difference of the notebook display are used to remake the notebook display with the mobile phone, and the final effect is as follows:

Finally, this blue color difference and low image quality result is exactly what I want, and it is also a trick I accidentally found. I hope I can share it with interested friends.

Skills of how to take simple photos.

In order to let readers who like minimalist images know quickly, we will explain the composition and composition of minimalist images for everyone, so that readers can clearly understand the influence range and utilization mode of each element, cultivate your sensitivity to minimalist photography, and shoot amazing minimalist images.

The first step is to find the so-called simplicity

If you want to shoot a simple and emotional image style, first of all, you should keep the pictures in a consistent and orderly arrangement or present a neat and clean blank space, so that a more eye-catching or attractive subject can catch your eyes deeply. To put it bluntly, it is necessary to keep the image simple and clear. Therefore, at the moment of shooting, the style created by the theme may affect the overall performance and become the most powerful element in the picture.

While shooting and conceiving, we should speculate what must stay in the picture and what should be removed. After all, we can only get what we give up. Therefore, even if the shooting theme does not cover the whole picture, it does not mean that there is no need to leave white space around or use color blocks to represent the image. In this way, the blank space around the subject can have a strong difference in the overall sense of space, so that the visual sense can appreciate the work with a more intuitive feeling. Of course, don't worry too much if you accidentally put debris into the picture when shooting. Readers may wish to try post-processing, or cut off those distractions to restore a pure and clean image.

Shooting water droplets and green leaves with a macro lens can also convey a simple sense of image.

Step 2: Minimalist writing skills

To present a beautiful work, in addition to attractive things, another key of minimalist style photos is personal composition ability.

Therefore, it will be a challenge for every photographer to carefully handle the structure and placement of the picture when shooting, and then find the perfect angle to create an impact image.

In order to shoot the minimalist style, we can start from the three-point composition method to find the so-called law, and then challenge it or even surpass it. For the image with Zhang Kuan height ratio of 3: 2, we can crosscut the image into three equal parts. As shown in the figure, we shot sea and the sky at 1/3 and 2/3 respectively, and then placed a visual focus at 1/3 to enhance the tension of the whole picture. Simply put, as long as you put the subject on the key line when shooting, you can enhance your vision and form an interesting minimalist composition. In addition, the strong minimalist style is not only composed of a large number of blank skies, but also requires the coordination of shapes or lines, which is somewhat similar to the geometric composition we mentioned before. There are many composition rules that can be broken to give play to the sense of minimalism.

Sometimes minimalist photography works don't need much explanation, and showing the clock in black and white can also be a simple beauty.

However, readers should pay attention to that when shooting, it is recommended to focus on the theme of the image you want, and if you have a little confidence in the depth of field control, you might as well use a large aperture and a shallow depth of field to highlight the subject, so that the audience's eyes can be tightly attached to the subject and the visual effect of the image can be enhanced, which is worth trying by players.

When you are heterosexual, you can also use the same technique to create images. A simple wing or a silhouette of a temple in the sunset can convey extraordinary images.

The third step is to look at the rich colors of the environment.

Color has always played an auxiliary role in image atmosphere, but in minimalist photography, color is not only an auxiliary image atmosphere, but also plays an important role in leading the image style of works and grasping the audience's vision.

Generally speaking, when shooting a minimalist picture, players should learn to use light to add color to the scene, and look for complementary colors that can balance colors, or contrasting colors, such as red with green, blue with orange, and yellow with gray, which are all TINT that can make the picture suddenly clear, just like many good works with bright eyes. Not only is the atmosphere of composition or image arrangement wonderful, but what is more interesting may be the TINT presented in the image.

When shooting, players should properly observe the surrounding color elements and pay attention to finding those colors that can be used for shooting, preferably bright colors, so that the subject or background can stand out and become more vivid.

The strong red door is in sharp contrast with the iron-gray handle.

However, a single red color contains multi-level changes in lightness and chromaticity, which makes a simple picture more interesting. The fourth step is to use lines to assist vision.

In the concept of composition in traditional photography, lines are an important way to guide vision, and make use of the directivity in images to let viewers see more important themes. In minimalist photography, lines will no longer be just small green leaves that assist the theme, but become red flowers that dominate image vision.

As far as the function of lines in minimalist images is concerned, when the theme image lacks content, lines should form favorable horizontal or vertical lines, and then form a powerful composition to build the whole image. If lines are dominant, it is necessary to properly control the directionality of lines, so that the picture can be combined with the simplest elements, such as drawing from the center of the picture to the periphery, drawing with circular arcs, or presenting tunnel-like image feelings with lines, which are all good minimalist composition techniques, and also allow viewers to see every different picture from their own perspective.

Lines from the center of the picture to the periphery can make the picture have symmetrical beauty and increase the richness of the picture.

Using geometric lines is also part of creating a minimalist image style.

Simple line extension can convey a tunnel-like image feeling to the viewer.

The fifth step is to find the extraordinary in the ordinary.

Compared with the big scenery covered by colorful scenery in landscape photography, many minimalist pictures take the small scenery as the primary goal of image creativity, carefully observe every corner of life, and make ordinary things that we didn't care about or ignore in the past unique and unexpected through framing skills or accurate composition arrangement. To put it simply, it is to try our best to make ordinary things extraordinary, transcend ordinary people's horizons and rediscover the extraordinary beauty of small scenes.

What are the little things around our lives that deserve our careful exploration and search? And those are the so-called ordinary things? Generally speaking, as long as you don't deliberately catch it when you pass by, or even choose to ignore it, it is probably an ordinary thing that can be seen everywhere, especially grass, trunks, potted plants and so on. , are the most common in life. But to be fair, although we may not deliberately shoot these things, they are often very important supporting roles in the scenery, but we have never given them the opportunity to play the leading role and convey unexpected artistic conception.

So once you start to spend time studying minimalist photos, you should polish your eyes, keenly observe the opportunities that have appeared around you, find the objects that are unique by space and lines, find their colors and contrast changes, or try to move your perspective, so that little people can make a big difference and catch the eyes that attract you and me.

The bonsai, which is often overlooked by us, can actually present a simple image style as long as the color expression and composition are well grasped.

Proper use of light can make the works achieve distinct image texture through different levels of tones.

A large number of blank walls make the picture less blank because of the lines, which has a contrast effect with the color of potted plants.

Step six, look at the charm of light and shadow tricks.

In addition to observing things around you keenly, mastering light and shadow is also one of the keys to assist the formation of minimalist images. You can feel the light in the picture through the changeable texture of light. Whether it is natural light or artificial light, the works can present the best three-dimensional effect with rich colors. As long as you know how to seize the opportunity to pursue good light, you can use the color of light to interpret the different effects of things.

To express a minimalist image through light and shadow, the most important thing is to choose the timing of shooting and let light and shadow determine the atmosphere in the image. As for the sunshine time in a day, in order to capture the light texture, readers are advised to shoot from dawn, about 1~2 hours after sunrise, or 1~2 hours before sunset, because the light in these two periods can enrich the color of the image, and can also make the oblique light lengthen the shadow depth, making the three-dimensional sense of the image more natural and profound.

In composition, players can try to practice with the contrast of light and the direction of shadow to find the opposition between shadow and entity, or let light convey the changes of lines on the wall, or try to change the natural level of the image with artificial light. For example, we can try to use the backlight in the sun as a material to express the characteristics of the background or characters in the form of silhouette, create dramatic image effects and change the atmosphere of photos. Therefore, the most important thing is to learn to observe the direction of light in order to capture bright works.

In view of the different weather and time, the intensity of light will also change. It is suggested that readers should always pay attention to the sunshine around them and capture every moment of life.

Using three-dimensional signs and light and shadow to express the picture can also present a simple simplicity.

Step 7: Learn to shoot stories.

Perhaps minimalist images can capture people's vision in a short time because of their concise style, but how can minimalist works be expressed except orderly lines, rich color expressions and works with strong light and shadow? Or how to express a picture with story emotion with the least content, color and shape?

In order to shoot a story or convey temperature, we may need to combine some elements when capturing images, such as obvious light irradiation, human figures, dynamic image effects, etc., so that photos can guide the vision to produce imaginative effects like movies. Because it is not easy to take such photos, readers are also advised to look for learning opportunities from their past photos, record past mistakes and failed framing methods, and think about whether there are other ways to present such scenery. Maybe there is no way to sort out a picture that can explain what happened with the least content this time, but after a long period of practice, one day when you really take a wonderful picture, you will applaud your past efforts.

Sometimes using low saturation or high contrast in black and white is also a way to increase image tension.

Using simple silhouette of characters can also fully express the story that the picture wants to explain.

When shooting humanities with minimalist aesthetics, remember to grasp the proportion of characters in the picture and try to describe the whole story with the simplest content.

The eighth step is to make good use of the position and proportion of the characters to create visual feelings.

As far as the emotional story we mentioned earlier is concerned, human form plays a very important role in the image. If the photographer can't convey the emotion from the work, it will make the photo have a completely different effect and affect the texture of the photo. As far as common works are concerned, with the presence or absence of people in the picture, or the number, movements, gestures, line of sight direction and even the position of the characters, these may affect the feelings of the works. Therefore, before pressing the shutter in your hand, you must be able to predict the direction of people in advance, keep your eyes on the viewing window and wait for the right time to shoot. If we misjudge the timing and location, we may present an image that does not meet the requirements in scale, which will greatly reduce the effect and become a meaningless miscellaneous painting.

In addition, the proportional relationship between people and background will also bring different effects to the image. Therefore, when observing the shooting environment, we must always put ourselves down, distance ourselves from the people in the environment, look at the scenery in front with binoculars, try to compress the background and the position of people, focus on small people, shoot the vastness of the scenery, and create an atmosphere and effect different from the general minimalist style. Just pay attention to two points when shooting. First, pay attention to the relationship with the background of the characters and create interesting image effects; Secondly, pay attention to the movements of the characters when shooting, and truly transform them into visual guidance, so that viewers can grasp their visual focus and understand their artistic conception instantly.

With the different number of people, the feelings conveyed are not the same. We should carefully judge the feeling of the picture and wait for the best shutter opportunity.

Images with human figures as the main characters should learn to make good use of the actions conveyed by silhouette and let the photos tell their own stories.

Step 9: Use creativity and give full play to image creativity.

Aiming at the shooting skills of minimalist style, I believe that after these steps, readers should be able to understand and learn some basic shooting methods. However, this is actually not enough. The key point is how to use these concepts flexibly, polish your eyes, find possible shooting targets and create your own minimalist style. Therefore, under this premise, there are two general directions for readers to refer to, try and hone their sensitivity to minimalist pictures, and that is to make good use of various equipment and subvert image composition.

For the former, it is to think about the meaning of images from all aspects. For example, give yourself some time, abandon your long-term digital camera, switch to the traditional negative monocular LOMO, or use the most powerful smartphone today. The purpose is simply to make photography move, get up and record every wonderful moment around you, and change your thinking about the work through the imaging texture taken by these different devices; As for subversive image composition, it is more suitable for experienced readers, that is, relying on their own composition ability, after adding environmental factors or other artistic things appropriately, trying to overthrow the old composition category and give full play to their personal image creativity, photos can naturally convey unexpected atmosphere and feelings.

Imagine that this picture would still be bright if there were no birds against it.

Negative film gives people a sense of texture that numbers can't imitate, so it can still show a situation and image atmosphere different from numbers.

The tenth step is to control the tone of post-production.

After reading the classification and composition of minimalist style, finally we will talk about the post-processing part. Basically, in the face of this image style, if readers don't have much experience in post-production and color creation, they should grasp simple principles, think about what is more and what is less, try to keep the picture real and present a concise atmosphere, and don't have to change their colorism drastically. Sometimes, it may be good to simply process photos, express the strength of layered lines with sharpness, or make the theme look particularly clear through contrast and light and shade.

So how can we simply present the atmosphere of the image, so that the photos will not be over-rendered, destroying the overall picture texture? Generally speaking, the editing of such images can be carried out in three main directions. First of all, players can choose to change the image level to "black and white", and use the brightness and tonality of the live lighting to increase the level created by contrast, showing the pure texture of monochrome images. Of course, readers can also try to "increase" the saturation of the image by adjusting the color, set off the theme by appropriate light, and increase the richness of the color, just like living in this land sincerely, emphasizing the true performance of minimalist images. Finally, it is an attempt to use post-production techniques to "change the visual locking angle", such as retaining only the theme color or using a single color to express it, changing the surrounding environment into black and white color painting, and using dark corners to change the viewer's view of the picture. Players may wish to try retouching software more and master their official post-production sense of the image.

For more experienced readers, we should try our best to deal with it in a purely artistic way, try more possible works, try to use the captured images as materials, not just photos, combine various elements to create more interesting works of art, challenge the framework of image thinking and play more surprises and changes.

In the post-production, the image can be slightly adjusted for the bright and dark blocks to make the contrast of the images stronger.

If you want to make the sky bluer, you can adjust the saturation of blue separately.