Five Frames, Found Slides, Minimalist

Vintage color film slides from the '80s, found, scanned, and post-processed for web publishing.

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Minimalism, in visual arts, music, and other mediums, is a style that uses the minimum of design elements. The movement emerged in New York in the early 1960s as artists moved toward geometric abstraction in painting and sculpture.

While some appreciate the openness of this idea, embracing the freedom of interpretation, others took the opposite stance, despising the lack of direction or subject matter. In photography, however, where a photo is a representation of a moment in time, and place, minimalism is instead used to enhance the impact of the image.

The rule? Keep it simple. Pick the strongest element of the shot, focus on what catches and engages the eye, and use the leading line and negative space to accentuate its prominence. Use the rule-of-thirds to help you compose. Work on a good depth of field to draw the eye to the focus of the composition. Go for distinct textures and colors, get the light just right, and work from a vantage point that will put all these in perspective.

Tell a story, bring people and figures into the context of your composition, and convey a scene or event using reduced subject matter, colors, and shapes. Post-processing your shots should be reasonably straightforward as you should already have a good notion of what you want with simple but dramatic images. Consider something surreal, use the artist in you to create a piece of art instead, or just stay true to life and process in its utmost simplicity.

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