Photographic Education and Critique: Photography Styles

Minimalism is a style employed by many 20th Century artists, using a minimum amount of components such as color, shape, line and texture. Within the art world it is considered an extremely subjective concept, leaving interpretation and meaning up to the viewers perception of the work.

Merriam Webster defines minimalism as:
1 :a style or technique (as in music, literature, or design) that is characterized by extreme sparseness and simplicity

Minimalist photography draws inspiration from the concept of minimalism in art – a style of art that was used by many 20th century artists. Artistically speaking, minimalism depends on extreme simplicity and involves using a minimal amount of compositional components such as shape, color, and line.

The goal of minimalist photography is to convey a concept that provokes an emotional response, or to provide a unique visual experience. Elements of composition must be kept to a minimum, and the ones that are left should be essential for conveying the overall idea, or symbolism, of the photo.

As with any photographic style, minimalist photography has its own set of challenges – mostly due to the fact that minimalism is based on simplicity, and it can be a challenge to eliminate all but the most necessary elements of a composition, and focus only on a limited number of objects and elements when creating a composition. Minimalism forces you to view the world differently, and will challenge you to look beyond the obvious for hidden photographic opportunities.

Many photographers are renown for their minimalism style and examples of their work are shown below:

(below) examples of minimalism from photographer Fan Ho