In photography

Photography

Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...

, the technique of simplicity is used to achieve the effect of singling out an item or items from their surrounding.

Simplicity is one of common underlying photographic techniques; a cluttered picture distracts the eye and takes away from the subject. A simple picture can be achieved by getting closer to the subject, which is also one of the main rules of photography.

Simplicity is one of the main components of most good photographs. The simpler the picture, the easier it is for the viewer to comprehend the subject and appreciate it. Cluttered images and backgrounds are less visually pleasing and more likely to cause the subject and lesser objects to confuse each other visually.

Achieving Simplicity

There are several ways to achieve simplicity in a photograph. The most obvious (and easiest) form is to place the subject against a neutral background like a backdrop or the sky. Backgrounds can be entirely neutral, like a solid backdrop or a cloudless sky; or they can complement the image, like a starfish on the sand.

The more technical method of achieving simplicity involves focusing on the subject while ensuring the background is unfocused. Macro

Macro photography

Macrophotography is close-up photography, usually of very small subjects. Classically a macrophotograph is one in which the size of the subject on the negative is greater than life size. However in modern use it refers to a finished photograph of a subject at greater than life size...

 settings on digital cameras tend to do this automatically, as they have a narrow depth of field

Depth of field

In optics, particularly as it relates to film and photography, depth of field is the distance between the nearest and farthest objects in a scene that appear acceptably sharp in an image...

to begin with; the same effect can be achieved with manual adjustment. the piture taken to represent simplicity should have a clear reason for why that object was chose. it should be clearly evident that thats the reason for taking the picture. all unrelated topics shouldn't be present.