An Artists Dilemma

Minimalism as Simple Geometry

Photo By © Prakash Ghai
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It is not easy being an artist. Usually what happens is that your immediate peers i.e your close friends and your family won't understand the work you do, nor will they be very optimistic and hopeful for you. They just do not know the scope and potential of your genre and art overall and therefore they will try and make you believe that you have chosen the wrong path. An artist requires about 3-4 years of base building before he could properly monetize his work. So here comes the dilemma. What should an Artist do? stick to his non-money generating art in his early years of creation or listen to his immediate peers and choose a different path.  I, myself face this dilemma as I do Minimalist Photography. The non-mainstream photo art. No I don't do wedding, product or portrait photography and people keep asking me where is the money and I usually have no response to give them. Though I believe if I stick to what I do, I shall be able to sail through. But life is really not easy. If you are an artist too and facing the same dilemma, share your story too.

Coming back to the photo, The door on the bottom right is used to show the artist's the immediate peers (or a different path). The water outlet on the left represents the artist. The long shadow of the outlet shows that he/she has been able to take forward his/her genre to quite an extent. The partition between the water outlet and the door shows the disconnect or the difference of opinion between the artist and immediate peers. The composition's highlight here is the depth created on the right by purposely placing the door on bottom right by keeping it on the rule of thirds. The split between the walls due was caused by the shadow differential although the color for both walls was the same. I took the shot around 4 pm in the afternoon which resulted in the shadow play.