07 STRIVE FOR SIMPLICITY
Don’t pack your subjects in like sardines, keep things simple
Simplicity is one of the most important elements of design, whatever medium you are working in, and it’s one of the hardest things to achieve in photography. You really should strive for it as a simple image is generally a strong image, and keeping things clean and uncluttered sets the stage for the other ideas discussed in this article.
You should normally work to have between one and three main elements in your image. If you have more than three it becomes extremely difficult to keep the photo from being too busy, which will weaken it.
A big part of being aware, which we discussed on page 30, is looking for simplicity. What you are really doing is looking at the scene very carefully and attempting to find only the elements you want, with none of the elements you don’t. Move around a little and see how altering your position makes more or fewer elements visible within the landscape you want to photograph.
If we think about the need for simplicity in conjunction with the background and foreground idea (page 32) it starts to show a full picture of what I look for when out shooting. Find the perfect background and foreground first, and then search for the perfect place where only two or three main elements are present, and nothing else.