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Keep up with key trends in Licensing as 500px’s Art Director & Creative Research Lead, Karen Biilmann, analyzes common threads and current themes throughout our contributors’ photography submissions. From unfamiliar angles in macro photography to contrasting backgrounds in food and forced perspective, here’s what’s trending in the 500px collection.
In this Licensing roundup, our sample size highlights trends within five categories: food photography, macro, travel, people, and city.
Food
Russia contributes the most to this particular category in our sample, enough to identify a few key features within the images themselves, primarily, the use of dark- or light-colored backgrounds.
A large number of the submissions featured either dark grey, or lighter whites and pastel backgrounds, making it easy to separate and analyze these two groups. While the two background styles create a stark contrast between themselves, they are used to isolate similar attributes within the photos themselves.
The dark backgrounds utilized in food photography are used to help emphasize the contrast between light and shadow. The darker areas in the image help to guide the viewer’s eye to the brighter parts of the composition, where the subject is positioned within the frame. This usually includes a pop of color, as seen in ‘French beans on the dark background’ by Thai Thu, or ‘Cherry tomatoes on a dark background’ by Ekaterina Fedotova, showcasing the vibrant focus of the image.
Similarly, lighter or white backgrounds can be used for this purpose as well. When pairing a lighter background with lighter accessories, the only color within the images comes from the food that has been incorporated, driving your eyes to the subject and making the colors pop within the frame.
Macro
Macro photography is another category that Licensing Contributors can’t get enough of, often being one of our top categories to submit to. Germany was the largest contributor of macro photography to this sample, followed closely by the United States. We often find that a soft background and sharp subject is what defines these small macro moments. However, some of the more unexpected angles become particularly striking within this collection.
Shooting these tiny critters on an angle provides us with an added element of interest. We not only are viewing the subject at an increased magnification with which we’re unfamiliar, but also view the subject at an uncommon angle, adding dimension (depending on the lighting), visual impact, and conceptual meaning, to name a few.
For example, looking down on the lizard in ‘In Between’ by Spencer Jones amplifies how small the lizard is, hiding between the folds of the leaf, whereas being eye-to-eye with images such as ‘Jumping spider’ by Kurt Hohenbichler or ‘Bajo el Rocio’ by Jesús García provides us with powerful and surreal, slightly-horrific viewpoints, despite knowing in the back of our minds that these are magnified, macro images and the subjects are, in fact, quite small.
Travel
Photographers from the U.S. submitted the most amount of content to the travel category. This group of photographs focuses on what is hidden during travel—private and unseen moments that connect the traveller to the experience. With global travel becoming increasingly accessible, there is a desire to seek out undiscovered moments within these destinations, both from a first-person perspective and an experiential perspective.
Images such as ‘Girl on the beach’ by Vasit Buasamui have a narrow focus, encouraging you to dive deep into your memory and think of times that you have stepped onto the wet sand, heard waves gently wash across the shore and smelled salty breeze as you casually walk across the beach, careful to only let your toes meet the crisp water’s edge.
People
There was a spike in submissions from Serbia in the people category, capturing an action or freezing a subtle movement, helping to translate the experience within the image.
Images such as ‘Family celebration or a garden party outside in the backyard. Close up’. by Jozef Polc and ‘Hands showing little buds in the soil’ by Cristian Negroni are captured from a close-range, first-person crop, which produces a forced perspective.
Images taken from forced perspectives ensure the viewer runs through a series of thought processes as they consider the image. Ownership is encouraged as you are looking at the image through a first-person perspective, as if witnessing the action through your own eyes. The viewer then interacts with the content and relates the captured moment to an experience they once had.
City
The U.S., again, contributed the most amount of content to the category in this sample, however, it was closely followed by Italy. City photography tends to focus on cityscapes and architecture within different cities around the world. Similar to travel photography and journalism, these images tell a similar story from different perspectives.
Photographers seek out these city locations and photograph it from various viewpoints, opening up the space and allowing the viewer to explore and interpret the destination in a variety of ways. It showcases the visual process behind composing the images in these particular locations, and how different photographers choose to approach the same location.
Want to see more of what’s trending in Licensing? Check out the 500px collection.
Continue reading...
In this Licensing roundup, our sample size highlights trends within five categories: food photography, macro, travel, people, and city.
Food
Russia contributes the most to this particular category in our sample, enough to identify a few key features within the images themselves, primarily, the use of dark- or light-colored backgrounds.
A large number of the submissions featured either dark grey, or lighter whites and pastel backgrounds, making it easy to separate and analyze these two groups. While the two background styles create a stark contrast between themselves, they are used to isolate similar attributes within the photos themselves.
The dark backgrounds utilized in food photography are used to help emphasize the contrast between light and shadow. The darker areas in the image help to guide the viewer’s eye to the brighter parts of the composition, where the subject is positioned within the frame. This usually includes a pop of color, as seen in ‘French beans on the dark background’ by Thai Thu, or ‘Cherry tomatoes on a dark background’ by Ekaterina Fedotova, showcasing the vibrant focus of the image.
Similarly, lighter or white backgrounds can be used for this purpose as well. When pairing a lighter background with lighter accessories, the only color within the images comes from the food that has been incorporated, driving your eyes to the subject and making the colors pop within the frame.
Macro
Macro photography is another category that Licensing Contributors can’t get enough of, often being one of our top categories to submit to. Germany was the largest contributor of macro photography to this sample, followed closely by the United States. We often find that a soft background and sharp subject is what defines these small macro moments. However, some of the more unexpected angles become particularly striking within this collection.
Shooting these tiny critters on an angle provides us with an added element of interest. We not only are viewing the subject at an increased magnification with which we’re unfamiliar, but also view the subject at an uncommon angle, adding dimension (depending on the lighting), visual impact, and conceptual meaning, to name a few.
For example, looking down on the lizard in ‘In Between’ by Spencer Jones amplifies how small the lizard is, hiding between the folds of the leaf, whereas being eye-to-eye with images such as ‘Jumping spider’ by Kurt Hohenbichler or ‘Bajo el Rocio’ by Jesús García provides us with powerful and surreal, slightly-horrific viewpoints, despite knowing in the back of our minds that these are magnified, macro images and the subjects are, in fact, quite small.
Travel
Photographers from the U.S. submitted the most amount of content to the travel category. This group of photographs focuses on what is hidden during travel—private and unseen moments that connect the traveller to the experience. With global travel becoming increasingly accessible, there is a desire to seek out undiscovered moments within these destinations, both from a first-person perspective and an experiential perspective.
Images such as ‘Girl on the beach’ by Vasit Buasamui have a narrow focus, encouraging you to dive deep into your memory and think of times that you have stepped onto the wet sand, heard waves gently wash across the shore and smelled salty breeze as you casually walk across the beach, careful to only let your toes meet the crisp water’s edge.
People
There was a spike in submissions from Serbia in the people category, capturing an action or freezing a subtle movement, helping to translate the experience within the image.
Images such as ‘Family celebration or a garden party outside in the backyard. Close up’. by Jozef Polc and ‘Hands showing little buds in the soil’ by Cristian Negroni are captured from a close-range, first-person crop, which produces a forced perspective.
Images taken from forced perspectives ensure the viewer runs through a series of thought processes as they consider the image. Ownership is encouraged as you are looking at the image through a first-person perspective, as if witnessing the action through your own eyes. The viewer then interacts with the content and relates the captured moment to an experience they once had.
City
The U.S., again, contributed the most amount of content to the category in this sample, however, it was closely followed by Italy. City photography tends to focus on cityscapes and architecture within different cities around the world. Similar to travel photography and journalism, these images tell a similar story from different perspectives.
Photographers seek out these city locations and photograph it from various viewpoints, opening up the space and allowing the viewer to explore and interpret the destination in a variety of ways. It showcases the visual process behind composing the images in these particular locations, and how different photographers choose to approach the same location.
Want to see more of what’s trending in Licensing? Check out the 500px collection.
Continue reading...