What are the minimalist photography techniques?

What are the quick entry skills of minimalist photography? The basic application of minimalist photography skills, using subtraction, white space, color and simple lines, makes the picture maintain the purest performance. Add light, emotion, proportion and simple post-production, and the image can be more powerful. Below I have compiled the skills of minimalist photography for everyone, welcome to read!

Minimalist photography skills

1, looking for so-called simplicity

If you want to shoot a simple and sensible image style, first of all, you should keep the objects in the picture in order or show neat and clean white space, so that a more eye-catching or attractive subject can deeply grasp the eyes of the viewer. To put it bluntly, it is necessary to keep the image simple and clear.

Therefore, when shooting, the style created by the theme may affect the overall performance and become the most powerful element in the picture. When conceiving and shooting, we should judge what must stay in the picture and what should be moved out of the picture, so that we can get it if we give up.

Of course, don't worry too much if you accidentally put debris into the picture when shooting. Through post-processing or cutting, a pure and clean image can be obtained.

2. Minimalist composition tips

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

Taking minimalist photos, in addition to attractive things, another key that affects the picture is composition.

Therefore, it will be a challenge for photographers to carefully handle the structure and position of the picture and find the perfect angle to create an impact image.

To shoot the minimalist style well, 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 in 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, a 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 earlier.

It should be noted that when shooting, the focus should be on the image theme. If you have a little confidence in the depth of field control, you may wish to highlight the subject with a large aperture and a shallow depth of field, which will attract the viewer's attention to the subject and strengthen the effect tension of image vision.

3. See the rich colors of the environment

Color has always played the role of assisting the image atmosphere, but in minimalist photography, the role of color is not only simply assisting the image atmosphere, but sometimes it also dominates the pattern of image style and plays an important role in grasping the audience's vision.

Generally speaking, when shooting minimalist images, photographers 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 can make the picture suddenly clear.

Many eye-catching works are not only wonderful in composition or image arrangement, but also interesting in color matching presented in the image.

When shooting, you should properly observe the surrounding color elements and pay attention to finding those colors that can be used for shooting, preferably bright colors, so as to highlight the subject or background.

4. Use lines to assist vision.

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

In the traditional concept of photographic composition, lines are an important way to guide vision, and the directivity of images is used to let viewers see important themes. In minimalist photography, lines will no longer be just small green leaves that assist the theme, but become big 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 the main characters, it is necessary to properly control the directionality of lines and make the picture combine the most concise elements. For example, from the center of the picture to the periphery, painting with an arc, or showing a tunnel-like image with lines are all good minimalist composition methods.

5. Looking for the extraordinary in the ordinary.

Proper use of light can make the work achieve a vivid image texture through bright colors.

Compared with the big scenery covered by colorful scenery photography, many minimalist pictures take the small scenery as the primary goal of image creativity.

Carefully observe every corner of our lives, and make ordinary little things that we didn't care about or ignore in the past become unique through framing skills or 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.

6. Look at the charm of light and shadow tricks

According to the different weather and time, the intensity of light will also change, so we should always pay attention to the sunshine around us and capture every moment in our lives.

In addition to keenly observing things around you, mastering light and shadow is also one of the keys to assist minimalist image composition.

Feel the state of light in the picture through the changeable texture of light, whether it is natural light or artificial light, it can make the work present a better three-dimensional sense and rich colors. As long as we grasp the opportunity to pursue light, we 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.

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

As for the sunshine time in a day, in order to capture the light texture, it is suggested that we 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.

When composing a composition, you can try to practice with the contrast of light and the direction of shadow, find the antagonistic relationship 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.

When shooting with artificial light source, we must pay attention to the influence of exposure level and ambient stray light, and if necessary, we can change the image atmosphere by increasing or decreasing EV.

For example, we can try to use the backlight of the sun and the west as the material to show the characteristics of the background or characters in silhouette, create a dramatic image effect and change the atmosphere of the photo.

7. Learn to shoot stories.

Minimalist images can catch people's attention in a short time because of their concise and clear style, but besides orderly lines, rich color expressions and works with strong light and shadow, what other expressions can minimalist works have? Or how to express a picture with story emotion with the least content, color and shape?

If you want to shoot a story-telling work, you need to combine some elements when capturing images, such as obvious light irradiation, human figures, dynamic image effects, etc., so that photos can lead the vision to produce imaginative effects like movies.

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. Photography: Zhang

It is not easy to take such photos, so it is suggested that readers can 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 organize and explain what happened with the least content this time, but after a long time of practice, you will really take wonderful photos one day.

8. Make good use of the position and proportion of characters to create a visual experience.

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.

As far as the story works mentioned above are 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, whether there are people in the picture, or the number, movements, gestures, line of sight direction and even the position of the characters may affect the rendering effect of the works.

So before you press the shutter, you must predict the direction of the person, keep your eyes on the viewfinder and wait for the right shooting opportunity. If you misjudge the timing and location, you may present an image that does not meet the requirements, and the effect will be greatly reduced.

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

In addition, the proportional relationship between people and background will also bring different effects to the image. When observing the shooting environment, we should widen the distance from the people in the environment, look at the scenery in front with binoculars, try to compress the position of the background and characters, focus on the little people, and shoot the vast scenery, creating an atmosphere and effect different from the general minimalist style.

There are two main points to pay attention to when shooting:

First, we should pay attention to the relationship with the background of the characters and create interesting image effects;

Second, pay attention to the movements of the characters when shooting, and truly transform them into visual guidance, so that viewers can grasp the visual focus and understand the artistic conception.

9, flexible use of creativity, play the role of image creativity.

I believe that after the guidance of these steps, everyone has learned some basic shooting methods, but the real point is 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 everyone to refer to and try to hone their sensitivity to minimalist pictures, 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, we can abandon the long-term use of digital cameras and switch to traditional film cameras, LOMO that can't really predict the effect, or use smart phones. The purpose is only to make photography move, but also to change our thinking about works through the imaging texture of these different devices.

The texture of negative film can't be imitated by digital images so far, so it can still show the situation and image atmosphere different from digital images.

As for subversive image composition, it is more suitable for experienced photographers, 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.

10, the key of later period

Later, you can adjust the image slightly for the bright and dark blocks to make the image contrast stronger.

After reading the classification and composition of minimalist style, finally we will talk about the post-processing part.

Basically, in the face of such images, if you don't have much experience in post-production and color creation, you should grasp the principle of simplicity, think about what is more and what is less, try to keep the picture real and present a concise atmosphere.

You don't have to completely change its color. Sometimes, it may be good to simply process photos, sharpen the lines on the layer to show strength, 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 later stage of this kind of image can be carried out in three directions.

First, you can choose to convert the image into? Black and white? , using the brightness and tone of the scene light 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 colors, and use appropriate light to set off the theme, increase the richness of colors, and emphasize the true expression of minimalist images.

Finally, the inherent visual angle is changed by later techniques, such as retaining only the theme color, or using a single color to express, changing the environment into black and white color painting, and changing the viewer's field of vision with dark corners.