By reduction I mean to reduce the image to its essence. Now sometimes this can be at the risk of losing the “story” or context. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Below are 3 recent examples of photographs where I tried to reduce the image to its essence. I am trying to explain how I see them. I don’t view these photographs as particularly strong, but they might illustrate the point and are recent.

Powerlines separate the image. There is some, but not perfect symmetry. And there are definitely distracting elements. But the image has only very few elements: powerlines, windows, brick wall and some sort of a wall defect.

This image has only 3 elements (or 4). The tower (of the church), part of the roof, and the sky. The clouds and the lighting of the tower give it an eery feeling.

This image has probably also only 3 elements. The fence, a fluorescent light, and some sort of a background we can not recognize. This image alone does not work, but it could work in a series. I do like this image in a weird way.

Recently I have been working with longer focal lengths to achieve this reduction, although this is not necessary. But I think it helps to compress the image a little bit with longer lenses, or eliminate elements that do not add to the image.