A Flower For Every Petal

Minimalism as Less Elements

Photo by © Prakash Ghai
Buy Now

Have faith in yourself and the universe, you are not just a petal. You hold the potential to be a blossoming flower. Many a times people think that their life is over and all their efforts have gone to vain. Later, their state of mind deteriorates and they start missing any opportunities that come their way. They either don't believe in them or think that they are just a trap to make them meet failure once again. But, NO. Do not commit such a mistake. Your job in life is to keep trying till you die, or until you get old. Someday you will click and be successful. You hold the potential, yes you do. One day surely you will shine and stand upright like a flower blossoming in the sun. Nature rewards those who keep working hard. If it does not reward you for your hard work, mind you it shall be messing up with its own rules. Success will be yours eventually. Only those who give up half-way shall not be rewarded. Believe in yourself and your abilities. And not to forget, most importantly "Believe in Nature". For once trust it. It shall not disappoint you, ever.

Composition

Shot during broad daylight at about 10 in the morning with my Canon 50mm 1.4 prime lens. This is Minimalism as Less Elements.The abstract flower sort of a feel the structure was giving me caught my attention. The light and shadow combination instantly reminded me of the leaves of a lotus flower (inverted). I kept it really simple and avoided center placement of the subject. Yes that was the trap here. Converting to monochrome was an active choice as some areas were blown out due to excessive light and because I was bored of the regular yellow that's spread all across my city, Jaipur.

Illuminated Exit

Minimalism as Less Elements

Photo by © Prakash Ghai
Buy Now

Each soul has a purpose in life and the purpose is made known to it before it takes shelter into a body. Some souls are able to fulfill their purpose and are given an Illuminated (or celebrated) Exit from the world just like a gala farewell party to a performing employee of the company. The illuminated geometric structure with sky in the background is used here to depict such a scenario. Many souls on the other hand fall prey to minds influenced by the material society, hence they feel trapped and continuously crave for an exit. So the question is what do you do? Well, become aware of your soul and its wants. Listen its calls. Make it feel comfortable in your body. Don't do any sort of self-harm. Follow a healthy life-style. Souls may want to live longer in your body to fulfill their purpose and they would tend to feel restless in an unhealthy body.

Ok, now back to the shot. This shot was taken at Jantar Mantar during the first Instameet cum Photowalk oragnised by my Instagram Page "Learn Minimalism" for the theme Simple Geometry on 20.09.2015. (I am doing my bit to popularize this genre of photography.) Although I have categorized this shot under "Minimalism as Less Elements", this can also go in under "Minimalism as Simple Geometry" i.e lines. I was down on my knees for the shot, looking towards the sky and it took me a good 6-7 shots to finally get done. I generally compose shots using my LCD screen but since it was extremely hot and bright nothing was visible on the screen. Therefore I switched over to the View Finder. Why did I mention this? because in the View Finder of most cameras there is no 3x3 overlapping grid which makes things a little tough for visual artists like me.

An Artists Dilemma

Minimalism as Simple Geometry

Photo By © Prakash Ghai
Buy Now

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.