The Inflection Point

Minimalism as Less Elements

Photo By © Prakash Ghai
Buy Now

Each loop of the Rusted iron chain here represents "An unsuccessful attempt to succeed in life." Some people do not have much luck by their side. They keep failing in whatever they do. If you carefully observe there are 11 loops or 11 attempts or 11 new ventures an individual tried, starting from the top all of which are in focus. But, the vision blurs out from the 12th one signifying that unlucky person is now tired and completely exhausted from a series of failures. He has reached The Inflection Point, from where everything has started to look blurry. There is loss of hope, lack of self belief and complete loss of faith in god. What should such a broken person do ? Give up? or still Carry on? Isn't there a limit to anything ? How strong could one be or rather act?

Composition 

This is an extreme low angle close-up shot with my 50 mm Canon 1.4 prime lens that I recently bought. Results of this lens are way better than my previous 50 mm 1.8 Canon prime lens. While composing I kept my aperture at F/7 and the focus point around the beginning 1/3rd of the frame to try and get most things sharp. Following rule of thirds was a little tricky and I don't like center splits, so I placed the diagonal line formed by the rusted chain a little off-center and biased towards left.

Whenever it rains

Minimalism as Low Detail

Photo by © Prakash Ghai

Rains generally make everyone smile, uplift people's mood and bring in a sense of love and romance. The feeling is indeed very special. But, for people who have had a fight with their loved one or for some reason or the other are away from the one whom they really care for, rains remind them of their loneliness. It reminds them that, neither they are "able to express their love" nor "they are able to get back any in return". It is even worse for people who are single, not because they did not get any proposals of friendships but because "they could never find anyone who could ever understand them". They are still waiting for the companionship of that special someone with whom they can walk hand-in-hand and get drenched. On the contrary, the lucky ones get to celebrate this gift of mother nature. They go out on long drives, eat out, party. Well plenty of options for them. 

Composition

I was out on a photo-walk with a good old friend of mine and while on my way back when I had given up all hopes of taking some good shots due to the heavy shower, I spotted this. Two traffic lights next to each other. The yellow one was continuously blinking and I had to wait for the other to turn green. The red you see next to the green comes from the brake lights of the cars passing by and the big patch of yellow on the top left are the bright yellow overhead lights meant to illuminate the crossing. The composition and the Minimalism Type: Low Detail is self-explanatory.  

PS: For me this is a rare shot as I had to bend on my knees and I am very lazy.

The Half-way mark

Minimalism as Less Elements

Photo by © Prakash Ghai
Buy Now

One may have any kind of goal or objective in his/her life but it all begins with the first few steps. Generally goals, (I am not talking about dreams here as they are usually vague) are set high and one starts working on them on the premise of hope, optimism and hard-work combined. But what happens with most people is that they work way too hard right at the start and get tired or exhausted by the time they are supposed to reach the "Half Way Mark". 

They end up concluding that the path they chose was wrong and they should try something else. My point here is that one should be patient enough and work at a steady pace until one reaches the Half Way Mark. Because after reaching this point, the goal (depicted by the red square) becomes clearly visible and what needs to be done or how many more stairs to climb to get there becomes clearly visible too (depicted by the number of stairs left to be taken). 

So what we learn here is that we should never take a call on something before we reach the half way mark. 

Getting back to the Mini-tutorial part of the photo. This is Minimalism as Less Elements. Some of you may argue that the geometry is spread out evenly and the shot is a little too detailed. But here I have inferred the Staircase in totality as one elements and the red square as a supporting side element. This might also fall under the category  Minimalism as Simple Geometry as there are a lot of lines and basic geometric shapes in the shot. Shooting this fully sharp from front to back required a high aperture and I shot it around F 8.0. Remember to keep your focus point roughly at 1/3rd of the total distance/depth of the frame to get everything mostly in focus. I kept the focus point on the left, between the 2nd and 3rd zigzag. Hope you enjoyed the shot and I send you all seasons greetings all the way from Jaipur- India. 

PS: Don;t forget to check out my new venture on Instagram the "Learn Minimalism" and the hashtag that I started there  #LearnMinimalism

By using the hashtag you too can take part in the Minimalist Photography Contest. The page has more than 43,000 followers and about 2,30,000 photos in the hashtag and growing. A lot of effort has been put in to promote and spread Minimalism in Photography on a global level. This lesser known genre deserves to be spread and "I am doing my bit for it."