6 Minimal Landscape Photography Tips I Learned from Michael Kenna

[Music] there are certain landscapes and there are certain moments and certain situations of light and season when minimal photography it's the best way that you can go for in that location for that given situation and when I'm thinking about minimal photography I think of Michael Kenna Michael Kenna it's a British photographer and it's one of my favorite photographers when it comes to minimal photography he should only in black and white he should film and I think we all have something to learn from his photos I've selected a few photos by Michael Kenna and I will tell you what I learned from it these six tips these six suggestions can be found in any of these photos any of these photos contain all those six tips so let's start and look at some photos and talk about some tips that you can use in your minimal photography the first tip that I want to give you is to keep it simple now if you thought that you are creating simple compositions well think again just take a look at the photos of Michael Kenna and you will see the simple elements used in these compositions take a look at this photo for example where you have the pure white of the snow and a simple fence that goes in a diagonal shape and strikes a photo from the bottom left corner to the upper right part it's one of the rare occasions when I see a photo completely divided by a diagonal and still working and I think that it's working because it has negative space on both sides and there is none element that will attract your eye on neither of these two sides another photo where simplicity is the game where you will see a simple zigzag if you want you go from here to here here and then you have a horizontal line over here again the use of negative space and just a simple fence now this is a famous tree that Michael Keller shot in Japan and it's like a truly black-and-white image it's very it has very light gray tones over here but the main image is about this patch of snow and this tree that goes in this strange shape if the photo it's about this tree then this is the element that should stay in in this photo and as you can see many of these photos are done during winter winter it's perfect do minimal photography and another one a simple horizontal line and you can see this entire element it's almost in the middle and it doesn't hurt the eye as long as you have negative space over here and over here that it's similar and none of these two areas have other elements that will interfere with your attention and I think symmetry goes or goes very well approach for basically the same situation you have some trees over here and you also have some trees over here but you have a different different approach and it's a completely different way of thinking now tip number two would be to use negative space as I mentioned in the beginning of this video any of these tips can be applied to any of these photo as you can see there's a lot of negative space in in his photos as you already saw for example here we have the mountains sticking out from the fog and you have this entire fog over here and many of these photos fall into a quote from Michael Cana where he said that he's not interesting in presenting the world as we see it because we see it like this every time every day is interesting in creating mystery and creating something that it's not necessarily visible for the naked eye this is for example presented in this photo well you have tip number three create a mysterious appearance if you want this is the rise of a full moon capture it in a really long exposure and you you see this trajectory on the sky and you're kind of wondering what it is of course the title gives it away another another image that shows not only why it's mysterious because you don't necessarily know what is this building but all right what I think it's great about this image it's because he he uses these eyes flowers in the foreground it gives you a suggestion of the the temperature how cold it was the season it's winter and my doing this you get a really interesting suggestion of another layer in in this photo another photo that falls into the category of mysteries of course you know these are boats but you don't necessarily know exactly what is happening over here this is a combination between the natural world and the industrial world Michel can offer graphs a lot these industrial buildings and in this in this situation it's it's almost like a new to a story about an utopia it's it's something like this is this is the last remains of nature because it looks like a rack or ruined and in the back there is in in smog and in fog and it missed the towers of this industrial building and again a simple approach to this layers of mountains that are stretching far away it kind of makes you think what is beyond this it's a simple approach but an effective one now tip number four would be the thing different cartier-bresson said a good photo is always on the edge of good or a total disaster and having the courage to to place the subject over here this kind of composition this type of placement of the subject I think you you have to think completely different in order to to come up with something like this here's another example of thinking different where you have a simple a simple tree line that goes up and you're capturing it in a square format or some birds sitting on some elements over here tip number five would be to think about your elements as a way of creating a perfect geometry as you can see over here this is this photo is perfectly aligned with the train rails they're going exactly between these two buildings and again a simple geometry shape that will guide your eye towards this point over here it's the simplicity of this image it's his decision not to include any other elements that make this photo a really great one this photo can be also about the mystery but it's also about creating a perfect geometry with this industrial furnace and this smoke or fog now how many times you have set yourself damn those wires they have those telephone wires that are sticking in front of my photo well here's an example of how Michael cannot take advantage of that and incorporated it in photo now the last tip that I have the tip number six is to see and understand how Michael cannae uses the areas of light and darkness and to understand that the alternation of these areas can create interesting compositions for example in this photo over here we have light then you have darkness then you have light then you have darkness again and then the photo kinda loses itself again the same way of thinking we'll have an area of light than an area of darkness and then again an area of light again this photo can be also seen as a mystery because you don't know what it's here again it can be seen as a construction of a perfect geometry because this is exactly what it is or a simple composition with a really long exposure you had this area of darkness light darkness darkness and light and you have this patch of light leading the eye towards the East Peaks over here and last photo where you have the smoke coming from these four nodes being a little by the industry light behind it and being captured in a really long exposure but these elements are so visible because you have this area of darkness over here and complete darkness in the negative space over here okay that's it for today and I hope that you have learned something by just looking at photos of a great photographer Michael Kenneth if you have something to say just use the comment section below if you're here for the first time please consider subscribing if you are subscribed already please go on my channel and check the bell that will notify you no matter what when I do a new upload and until next time keep off our graphing is the only way that you can get better thanks for watching bye bye [Music] you

Channel: Photo Tom

Views: 124,318

Keywords: minimal photography, landscape minimal photography, minimal photography tips, landscape minimal phtoography tips, landscape photography, Michael Kenna, Michael Kenna photography

Id: wuK0yrRulkU

Length: 10min 6sec (606 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 08 2018