This week, Amy suggests that “Less is More” when it comes to photography. She quotes Antoine de Saint-Exupery, “A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

I must admit I don’t always follow that learned advice, but on occasion I have learned that lesson. You can read Amy’s entire challenge post here.

As an example, in the image above, I focused on the copper rain chain hanging from the roofline of an outdoor overhang. The six-sided roofline had one of these rain chains at the corner of each of the six lowest points on the roof. The copper “bells” expressed a quiet beauty in their own right yet they didn’t take away from the design of the whole.

My last two examples of my challenge response focuses on floral subjects. In the photo above, a bee is on his way to a flower to do what bees do. I learned that a long telephoto lens at full extension allows me to focus closely on a subject from some distance away, getting a close-up image without disturbing any of the wildlife that happens to be nearby.

For my last example, I extended the “less is more” concept to colors within the image as well as focusing on a small area within the whole of the plant. The desert poppy above is highlighted all the more because the only color in the image is within the subject itself. The HSL tool in Lightroom was instrumental in removing all but the petal colors in this image. In most browsers, you can click on any of the images above to see a more detailed view of the photo.

John Steiner