black and white minimalism

fifteen lessons

I like a challenge.

Last week I went to see a fascinating exhibition of photographs at a gallery not far from where I work.  Here are fifteen lessons I scribbled down on a sheet of lined paper from my Counsel's Notepad.

1. Black clothes on a black background; white on white.  Focus on skin and face.
2. The direction of eyes; the implication of where someone is looking by obscuring the eyes and letting the viewer make a connection.
3. Try some B&W abstractions.
4. What are you doing about using shadows more effectively?
5. Deliberately move your camera.  Get some motion into your pictures.
6. Explore Terence Malick's film, "Tree of Life".
7. Paint with light using a torch.   Think about longer exposures rather than wide apertures.
8. Deliberately use your camera settings incorrectly.
9. How minuscule can you make the key image in the photograph before it becomes meaningless.
10. Have you really explored the hardness and softness of lines in your photographs and how the two inter-relate?
11. Why do you always focus on the eyes?
12. Have you really let time seep into your photographs?
13. Are you really scared to use studio lighting and backdrops?  Where could you make a start?
14. How might destroying your photographs create something new?
15. What can you see in the reflections?

I wonder where these might lead me ....