Neil Scott FRPS of Edinburgh Photographic Society visited the club to give us our first talk of the season, describing his adventures into minimalism in photography. Neil is a skilled portrait and still life photographer and likes to introduce a degree of surrealism or minimalism into his work, often creating a series of photographs with a common theme. The recent pandemic had given Neil the opportunity to experiment with minimalism in household objects. We were were introduced to four of Neil’s still life themes:

• Metallographs, where Neil had cleverly photographed small metal objects from an angle that made them look like something else. One example of a metal clip that looked like a rower.
• The red series, where small, familiar red objects were photographed inside a plain shape against a stark white background. One particularly striking example was a red chilli pepper on a white plate against a which background.
• Household geometry, where Neil had spotted contrasting shapes when two or more household objects were juxtaposed. The images lose the identity of the household objects and take on a life of their own when cropped. One example was the edge of a table photographed next to a radiator.
• Frames, which consisted of brain-teasing pictures of intersecting wooden frames in impossible positions, rather like the false perspective creations of M.C. Escher.

Neil explained that lighting a minimalist scene is harder than it looks, as there is very little contrast between the (often white) subjects and (often white) background. Neil prefers to use soft natural light coming from the side so it casts soft shadows, and he will sometimes deliberately block the light with a book or similar object to control the shadow in the background. Each scene is placed in front of an “infinity curve”, which can be made by curving a piece of plain card from horizontal to vertical against a wall. The infinity curve creates a background with no boundaries that fools the viewer into thinking the scene goes on forever. Some of Neil’s images were photographed against black velvet to create a black background.

Neil finished by showing us more of his minimalist and surreal creations, showing how he can turn what at first seems like a boring image (e.g. one person standing on an empty beach) into an artistic creation by blurring the image and manipulating the colours. An image of a solitary horse rider on the beach was particularly striking. Thank you Neil for once again fascinating us with your fantastic creations. You can see more of Neil’s photograph on his web site:

https://www.neilscottphotos.co.uk/

Our next meeting (Thursday, 28th September) will be a “Sets of Six” evening. Please bring along any set of 6 images (or a few short videos) that you think will be of interest to club members. If there is time, we can also use part of the evening for a technical presentation, for example if you need help with the “editing challenge” or any other project.

I look forward to seeing you on Thursday,

Steven