Lessons
Minimalism - A Few Words to Start
00:43 2The Power of Negative Space
06:01 3Learn to See Visual Clutter
03:03 4Isolating Your Anchor
03:02 5Composing for Better Minimalist Photographs
03:57 6Choosing Gear to Create Minimalist Photographs
03:22 7Black and White the Classic Approach
03:38 8Working With Color
02:47Location Session - Apex Beach
04:54 10Apex Beach - Wrap Up
02:20 11Timing and Weather
00:44 12Common Traps and How to Avoid Them
07:08 13Post-Processing - When I Use it and Why?
14:19 14Print Your Work and Harness the Power of Minimalism
02:05 15Sled Dog Portrait Image Review
04:18 16Sled Dog Portrait Key Takeaway
02:43 17Location Session - Arctic Drone Flight
01:38 18Arctic Drone Flight Image Review
05:59 19Arctic Drone Flight Key Takeaways
02:10 20Snowkiting In the Canadian Arctic - Location Session
01:35 21Snowkiting Image Review
05:58 22Snowkiting Key Takeaway
02:27 23Class Summary
03:03Lesson Info
Sled Dog Portrait Image Review
So here in Photoshop, I wanted to go over these two images that I've selected from Lightroom. Well, two concepts. I have four images open here in Photoshop. And I'm gonna show you kind of the two that I was kind of wavering back and forth on for both concepts and why I decided on the final images that I did. Here's the first image in Photoshop, the wider angle dog and its environment in the yard that I was talking about. And what I like about this shot is that I do have the primary dog upfront and close to the lens. That little bit of wide angle distortion is really helping sell those features. He's got these very angular features with the ears and the nose and I I love his, I love that he's facing me. I love that we're getting that engagement with camera the lines. I was sort of debating on whether or not I was going to take them out in post right now. They're kind of working for me as like a leading line that's going back into the frame and it does represent what the yard looks like.
So I'm not totally needing to get, you know, to take those out with Photoshop. Although in the final image, I do clean up some of the lines. But in this shot, I like how it works. I like how it leads back into the frame and what also I'd like to point out which was important for me was the the fact that all these dogs back here are kind of just doing their own thing. But it was really important to wait for a moment when there was separation between each one, going for the second image is more of what I had in mind and right away, you're going to notice that I've kind of gone against what I just said in the last image and that being that I do have dogs overlapping in the background. And ideally I would have space between this first dog here and the dogs behind him. But I'm working with live animals, I don't have all that kind of control. And so I don't know, I feel like this actually worked out quite well for the conditions. I do. What's most important here is getting space between the front dog and the dogs in the back. So that part I like quite a lot. And as you can see, I've cleaned up the lines connecting the dogs just to get it cleaner and get rid of more of that distraction and clutter. So also, I've lowered my angle. You'll see as I go through here, I'm progressing towards getting on the dog's level to create a more engaging subject and to to not have that top down sort of domineering perspective. Here's the second concept, which was the single dog portrait. He's got a great look, he's animated. I really love how you can see the snow on his fur. It's really like coming out really well, the contrast is great. He's looking at camera. I love the expression, I love that. It's centered. I'm a sucker for that kind of stuff. A lot of my minimalist work in particular has very, very heavy for center framing. So I love, I love that kind of work. His ears are on point. No pun intended, but they are they're very those strong triangles and the strong face, all this negative space really helps with the strong form and shape of the dog himself. So, overall, I really like this image. I think it works well. I think it would be good for, you know, um publication. You could put all kinds of text or whatever up and down the side here and it's clean and it's fun. But it's not exactly what I would call a super interesting or layered, minimalist image. It doesn't have a lot of depth and a lot of times minimalism. Photography can fall into that formula where it's very flat, there's just one dimension. And so I wanted to see if I could build some dimension and depth back into a portrait of this dog. And that's what I was trying to do with this final image here. So it's the same dog. It's not as tight. It is more of the dog and the environment. It's kind of a hybrid between the first concept and the second concept. It's not really a tight portrait and it's not really the dog in the yard with the other dogs, but it is my favorite shot of the shoot. I love the expression, I love how he's got that sort of downcast, somber look.
Ratings and Reviews
Brittany Riggs
Lovely and information. The information was relevant and ended up helping a good bit.
Vincent Zuck
Very interesting class, in a very unusual location (Arctic), which blended together to give a top notch class. I learned a lot about Minimalism as applied to photography, and Minimalism as applied to post-processing. Curtis is engaging while teaching and demonstrating on site, or back in his "office". I really enjoyed this class. Thank you Curtis.
Kate Geary
Student Work
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