Minimal - July 2024

To keep this brief - July's theme was minimal.

'Less is more' is a phrase that's often bandied about and is well-suited to minimalism in art in general and photography in particular. It can be good discipline to simplify the elements in an image as much as possible so only the essential parts remain - reduce the distractions and leave only what is supporting the subject.

Arguably minimalism takes this a step further, leaving a bare minimum of features and allowing, or perhaps requiring, the viewer to use their imagination to fill in the gaps. Images like this can be calming and meditative and could be why they are often labelled as 'fine art'.

There were various interpretations by our members of this theme that fell broadly into two categories: those images that concentrated on a single subject that dominated the frame, and those that were dominated by negative space. In the former category we saw macro photos of flowers and some still life; in the latter were uncluttered landscapes. There were three joint favourites voted by our members and they all fell into the second category - One Man and His Dog by Graham Fowler, Sunrise at Frampton and Sand Patterns by Colin Waite.

Our Image of the Month round contains photos taken since our last Show and Tell meeting. Despite the less then summer-like weather we've had recently quite a few were taken outside and one, a raindrop-sprinkled flower, made a feature of it. There was a pleasingly disparate selection that included landscapes, buildings, street and abstract subjects but two images attracted the most votes: Marbled White by Colin Waite, a lovely study of a butterfly which was pipped by one vote by Daredevil, an exciting photo of a wingwalking display taken by David Kallmeier at Sywell Airshow.

Which photo would you have voted for? Let us know by emailing info@whphoto.club.

Click on any of the pictures to enlarge them.