Sunday, September 25, 2011

Assignment: Simplicity

Street Light

For the first shot on this assignment I'm going with the obvious, it's the only one I took today that seems presentable and fulfills the requirements of the task.Obvious because in the city this is one of the easiest subjects for such an assignment, a street light or utility pole or a flower juxtaposed against a blue sky, with or without clouds.

The idea behind simplicity is to include a (usually) single subject within an otherwise vast expanse of negative space. There may be a little too much going on with the clouds here, though. I guess there are degrees of simplicity.

3 comments:

  1. Hey Mike, sorry for not commenting on your other images, they are all so good, not sure what to say other then I love them. How are you coming up with the self assignments? I like them, it makes you think ....

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Gerry, and no problem. I know the feeling. The assignments come from a book I mentioned a long time ago, Practicing the Art of Contemplative Photography, a very Zen/Buddhist approach to "seeing." I don't practice Bhuddism, but I can appreciate the ideas, and it's just one way of thinking about it. For some people, seeing is intuitive, or something they've done their whole lives and hardly ever think about consciously. For me it's a learned behavior. Happy shooting :-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Now I just read your comment about zen buddhism, after my last comment on the acorn. In a way, I was correct. I understand your way of thinking, and sometimes I see the world in this way, but most of the time I can't close off the distractions of life.

    ReplyDelete