As you can see, when the surroundings are suitable, when the buildings are recent, it’s relatively easy to take minimalist photos. To this end, we headed to Henan province in China. And for a few days we were lucky enough to be able to explore an unusual and highly aesthetic place.

The secret of the minimalist photography

To give your images an uncluttered look, the ideal is to work with a relatively short focal length, such as 50mm. The longer the focal length, the easier it is to frame and isolate subjects. Some even go as far as 200mm to get the sharpest, purest images possible. The more you zoom in, the easier minimalism becomes, and that’s the key.

Minimalism is modernity and modernity is China

The other great secret of minimalist photography is to find new places that are still relatively unknown to the general public, in order to be able to present never-before-seen images.

The other great secret of minimalist photography is to find new places that are still relatively unknown to the general public, so as to be able to present never-before-seen images.

Spotlight on a unique and exceptional site in Henan province, China

This architectural UFO, a glimpse of which you may have seen in the minimalist photos in this article, is located in Zenghzhou in central-eastern China. Unique Henan is a sort of cultural theme park, or rather a major center for contemporary theatre. It’s a grandiose, immersive place where you can come with your family or friends to discover breathtaking shows.

Unique Henan, a major cultural center dedicated to the dramatic arts

And there are plenty of plays here. In all, there are almost twenty-one plays, all performed several times a day. To see them all, you’d need to spend eleven hours and forty minutes, or three days, at a rate of just under four hours a day.

Unique Henan, outstanding architecture

In terms of architecture, Unique Henan is a rather successful theatre complex. You can admire the volumes and stroll through a series of interior courtyards. Each courtyard has its own atmosphere, with its own codes and aesthetics.

Why do people like minimalist photos?

The general public likes to look at minimalist images because they lighten the mind. Sometimes you can get a little bored or daydreamy, which is often the result of time being short. It’s a positive experience for the viewer. On the other hand, there is always a meaning to the image, an idea or concept to be found. Without the construction of the image, photography doesn’t exist. Minimalism is first and foremost the need to reduce the number of elements in a photograph. The idea is to capture as few things as possible in order to highlight shapes or an object or a repetition of similar objects. Minimalism is about simplicity and is also a form of modernism.

Introspection of contemporary photography

A capture of the moment that is neither thought through nor framed does not fall within the scope of photography as strictly understood. It’s true that many photographers build their work on emptiness, using luxury cameras or exaggerated retouching. The void leaves room for the imagination, and the most naive will attribute the creativity of their brain to the instigator of the photographic trap. But this process is beginning to reach its limits. Many photography fans complain about street artists or creative artists who limit themselves to framing everyday objects without any real strong message.

The limits of minimalism

And there are even more of them in post-production correcting perspectives and vanishing lines as if they were working in a camera. Then, undoubtedly, it all comes to an end with the hastily added brown, maroon or ochre colourimetry that has already started to go out of fashion. A bit like the saturated HdR of the 2000s. In any case, it’s still a fashionable process that everyone thinks is brilliant and fantastic before turning their backs on it. Exactly the same thing happened in painting with the pompier style at the very beginning of the 20th century. And at the time it was the Impressionists who paid the price. They lived in poverty while impostors sold their paintings to the brainless. History is always repeating itself. Minimalism is an interesting movement in photography, but you need to have enough knowledge and courage to distinguish between the two.