All images by George Digalakis. Used with Creative Commons permission.
When we speak of landscape photography, minimalism isn’t usually the first technique or style that comes to mind. With black and white, however, there’s more of that given the strong influence of masters, particularly Ansel Adams. When you combine the two, the results are actually stunning, as landscape and fine art photographer George Digalakis demonstrates in his Minimal Landscapes set.
Minimalism is often used to put emphasis on colors, shadows, lines, shapes, and lone subjects. Black and white is also great tool for this purpose, for the obvious reason that it reduces a scene into a monochromatic palette. For Athens-based George, long exposure black and white photography is his tool of choice to “move the images away from reality, introducing the sense of passing time and eliminating details from the background.”
According to George, minimalism both as an art and philosophy has greatly influenced his work. It naturally follows that the works of minimalist photographers like Michael Kenna have also made their impact on his style and creative vision. Like Hengki Koentjoro, another noteworthy minimalist landscape photographer, George has an affinity with water. However, it doesn’t appear as the central theme of his work. Instead, he uses it as a canvas to create a balance and convey emotions with.
As we can see from Minimalist Landscapes, George’s style effectively recreates each scene as a moody balance of light and shadows, high contrast, repeating elements or lone subjects against a bare backdrop, and varying monochrome tones. His goal is not merely to achieve simplicity, but to go beyond reality to convey his inner vision and underlying emotions. Through this minimalist approach, George has found a perfect blend of surrealism, tranquility, and lonesome atmosphere to impart with viewers of his work.
Do check out George Digalakis on Behance and his website to see more of his beautiful minimalist landscape photography.
