Simplicity

Another word for simplicity is purity, visual purity, and this marks much of my photography. When I isolate an image, it becomes for me more vivid, more real. In some ways, this approach is old-fashioned, for I do not try to capture life with all it’s inconsistencies, with all it’s visual contradictions. Instead, I attempt to isolate. I attempt to find art in a corner of reality, an image that belongs first to itself, and second to the world around it.

Often, I use light to isolate this image. It is one of my favorite techniques, because it adds texture, color, and depth. But I also use patterns to isolate a subject, or let the pattern become the image, such as in the Venice reflection. Simplicity. Isolation. Light. These are the hallmarks of my photography. But I also like to photograph motion. Instead of freezing it, I prefer to let the action move across the film plane. I often think of the resulting image as "poetry in motion," for it creates an emotional mood using color instead of words. And a bonus is that it often creates it’s own composition. For this reason, I seek simple backgrounds, or panwith the action to create such backgrounds. When beauty results, it usually stems from a balance in the splashes of color or from complementary curved lines. Another way to avoid complexity is to focus on only a portion of an image. Instead of capturing a panorama or a large structure, I seek the blend of line, form, and color in a limited area, for this can capture the essence, present it with artistic harmony, and suggest the whole. This winnowing down, this search for simplicity produces balance and creative tension. When I have to choose between adding to or subtracting from an image, I nearly always choose the second, leaving things out, and leaving room for the viewer to enter.

Robert A. Parker