Tag Archives: minimalism

January Theme Challenge – “Minimalism”

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Firstly we would like to wish all of you a Happy New Year and hope you all experience a fantastic and prosperous 2025.

For this month, January 2025, the theme challenge is “Minimalism”. The intention is to create an image that would be obvious to the viewer who or what the subject is, typically accomplished by using; light, and negative space, while eliminating any other elements from the image to help the subject to stand out, “less is more“.

The photographer decides what to exclude from an image by using composition and perspective techniques, while using negative space to exclude elements as best as possible making the subject stand out in the image. Also, make use of other techniques by combining; colour, lines, shapes, patterns, symmetry, geometry, and repeating shapes to help identify your subject.

Include us in your success, share the image you’ve created this month.

Some Considerations

Composition: Importantly eliminate distracting elements by using a subject supporting composition, think negative space. Fine tuning the composition can be accomplished by moving your camera position or angle, getting further away, or getting closer, or by further cropping your image in post-production to remove any or as much as possible distracting elements.

Camera Settings: For camera settings you can start in Aperture Priority mode (Av for Canon or A for Nikon, Sony etc…). Depending on your subject and focal length the aperture can be pretty much anything, just decide on how much depth of field you need for your subject and the overall image you are trying to create. An aperture anywhere between f/4 and f/11 and keep your  ISO low say 100 or 200, remember this is just a starting point. Keep an eye on what the camera chooses for a shutter speed especially if you are taking your images handheld. If the shutter speed is slow say 1/50 then raise your ISO to obtain a faster shutter speed of at least 1/100 or as a minimum 1/focal length. If you are using a tripod slow shutter speeds can be used if the subject is not moving. It may be desirable to use slow shutter speeds depending on the image you want to create.

Focal Length: If you are shooting a vast landscape, you may want to use a wider angle lens somewhere around 16 to 35 mm, as an example, or if you need to isolate the composition you may want a longer focal length say between 100 to 200mm and can be as much as 400mm depending on your final composition.

Remember this genre of photography is not confined to only landscapes it can also apply to environmental portraits, street, and nature genres to name a few.

Example Images

Three of the images below use a boat as a main subject with lots of negative space. The last image shows a beach at sunrise created from one single image; one layer using path blur in Photoshop to simulate horizontal intentional camera movement (ICM) and the second layer was as shot, then the two layers were combined using a simple soft brush mask with the blending point where the fog and ocean meet, which helped the subject, the sun breaking over the island, standout because the ICM technique softened the distractions of the sand, seaweed, and ocean in the foreground.

As mentioned above “minimalism” images can be created in other genres such as the wildlife examples shown below; a Long-Tailed Duck, Gray Seal, Barred Owl, and White-tailed Deer which are all presented making use of negative space. Note: if it’s snowing you may need to focus manually on the subject.

Protect your Gear and be Comfortable

Equipment care: Taking your camera gear from a warm environment to the outside usually does not cause any issues, however when going from the cold back into a warm environment is where condensation can quickly form on your camera/lens and this is where it can be harmful to your gear eventually causing spots on the external and more seriously the internal lens elements which eventually causes mold which can destroy your lens. Before going in to a warm environment from the cold, place your camera/lens back inside your camera bag (your bag needs to be padded with the zipper closed) this will allow your gear to raise in temperature slowly and therefore condensation will not happen. An additional protection tip is to put your camera/lens in a large double Zipper Seal (Dollarama 33cmx39.6cm / 13″x15.6″) bag, this will allow the condensation to form on the outside of the bag and not on your camera/lens. Condensation will occur going from the cold outside into a warm building or into a vehicle, keep the temperature of your vehicle cooler to minimize the effect.

Clothing & Footwear: Stay warm, to enjoy your time out in the cold dress in layers with thermal socks for your feet and gloves that allow you to operate your camera and keep your hands warm. If you are in icy conditions use crampons or cleats on your boots, they will keep you from falling so you don’t get hurt or break your gear.

Additional Resources

As always with our monthly theme challenges we try to seek out an instructional resource, below are some YouTube video links to help with some tips, hints and ideas.
Minimalism Photography instructional aids:
■ Minimalist Photography Tutorial (Using Negative Space): by Mango Street (6min 29sec)
■ 5 Steps to Incredible Minimalist Photography: by Mads Peter Iversen (17min 27sec)
■ The Secret to Killer Minimalist Photographs: by Henry Turner (10min 4sec)
■ Minimalist Photography: by Thomas Heaton (14min 31sec)
■ Landscape Photography | Minimalism: by Simon Booth (9min)
■ Learning to Observe – The landscape Minimalism of Michael Kenna: by Joel Ulises (22min 8sec)

You’re encouraged to develop the ability to “tell a story or invoke an emotion“, as well as learn to plan and troubleshoot while creating images.

  • It’s important to not only create an image but to also include a “Title”, this process helps with; determining your subject or story, and composition.
  • Try writing a short paragraph about; how you came up with the idea, any interesting back ground that compelled you to make the image, and describe any techniques how you overcame any obstacles.
  • Do some research and include any relevant information behind the subject of your image. This helps with planning and your approach for a story

An important part of improving your photography is practice, practice, practice which is one important aspect of the monthly theme challenge, in addition you have an opportunity to learn about different genres, techniques and tips that you are not familiar with.

Share your images and stories experienced this month

Even though this website is not setup to directly upload your images, you can achieve something similar by commenting on the post; paste your social media or google drive link to your image in the comment, then type any additional message you’d like to share. Everyone who visits will be able to visit your link. Note comments are moderated so it will not show up right away. We do get notifications when any comment is posted, so it won’t take long to get approved and have your comment subsequently show up. By pasting your social media or google drive link in your comment, it gives everyone visiting the blog a chance to click the link to see your image for the challenge and also the ability to look at your other work by viewing your social media through your pasted link. We want sharing to be a positive experience and we hope you have fun with this month’s photo challenge.

April Theme Challenge – A Lone Tree

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For this month, April 2024, the theme challenge is “A Lone Tree“. This month’s challenge requires you to get outdoors and search for a location that has a lone tree. This challenge is an initial exercise to introduce “Minimalism” in your photography, essentially learning to reduce your composition to make your subject, in this case a lone tree, to stand out typically in a landscape by using weather, light, focal length, and/or position to exclude elements that you do not want within the frame.

Colour or Monochrome: You can create your image as colour or monochrome (black & white) depending on how you want your final image to look. If you choose “Monochrome” you can either create it using post processing software or in camera by choosing a monochrome picture style setting on your camera. Note that you can also edit the settings in any picture style, specifically in this case contrast to help make your monochrome images more dramatic. This time of year, the start of spring, the trees are void of or have minimal leaves so monochrome could help.

It is important to understand that if you shoot in “Jpeg” with a monochrome picture style setting on your camera, the image saved to the memory card will not have any colour, so remember to change your picture style camera setting back to a colour style such as; standard or landscape or portrait, when finished shooting in camera monochrome images.

Use of Light: One example, the following image uses the light from the fire to show the tree as a silhouette. Also the surrounding darkness effectively separates/softens the surrounding trees from the image to help make the tree silhouette stand out.

Use the Fog: Make use of the fog is a technique used in woodland photography to help soften or remove distracting elements from the frame to help make your subject stand out. You will notice the background is very soft due to the fog essentially removing the distant trees from the image. Although not a complete minimalistic image the fog has significantly helped the subject, tree, stand out.

Share with us the images you create this month.

We try with our monthly theme challenges to seek out additional instructional resources, below are a number of YouTube video links to help with some hints and ideas. Taking Photos of Iconic Locations instructional aids:
■ How to photograph lone trees and golden eagles: by Photography Online (36min 59sec)
■ Stormy Minimalist Landscape Photography: by Mads Peter Iversen (13min 41sec)
■ 5 STEPS to INCREDIBLE MINIMALIST photography: by Mads Peter Iversen (17min 27sec)

Students are encouraged to develop their ability to tell a story or invoke an emotion, as well as how to plan and troubleshoot while creating their images. As such it’s important to not only create the image but to also include a “title”, and write a short paragraph about; how they came up with the idea, any interesting back ground that compelled them to make the image, and describe any techniques on how they overcame any obstacles. Also do some research and include the story behind your iconic location.

An important part of improving your photography is practice, which is one aspect of the monthly theme challenge, in addition you have an opportunity to learn about different genres, techniques and tips.