Patches of bright orange and yellow minerals at the edge of a pool
Lens-Artists,  Photographic techniques,  Sunday Stills,  Themed galleries

Gallery: starting with something

April 24, 2024 / 65 Comments

There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality.

Pablo Picasso

That is certainly true of photography, unless we stray into the realms of AI. We must always start with something. The trick is, what to do with that something. We can represent it simply as it is, a faithful record of our subject. We can get creative, perhaps using black and white or playing with tone and structure, to produce an image close to the original but not purely representational of it. Or we can interpret the subject with such freedom that it becomes something other than it once was, an abstraction.

This we can do in camera or in post-production. Techniques for the former include ICM (Intentional Camera Movement), something I haven’t yet mastered to my satisfaction, or super macro shots, getting so close that the subject no longer looks like itself. Extreme cropping can also reduce a scene to an abstraction. And some subjects simply look abstract with very little effort beyond a clever choice of angle or viewpoint! Think about ripples on water, or reflections.

Meanwhile in post-production the possibilities are much wider, with filters available through software editing programmes to supplement anything we might come up with ourselves. Sometimes simply softening an image is enough to create a more abstract vibe; I use Nik Color Efex Pro’s Sunlight or Soft Focus filters for this, sometimes both together!

For Ritva’s Lens Artists challenge this week I have a few examples of both in camera and post-production abstracts, selected as usual from my (mostly recent) travels. Some are more abstract than others, I admit. Hopefully most will be new to you or will have been edited in a fresh way. And since the earth was the inspiration and starting point for most of these shots, I’m also linking to Terri’s Sunday Stills Earth Day theme.

Rippled and swirling water

The waters of Deception Pass, WA

An example of a ‘straight from camera’ shot in which the subject created abstract patterns with no help needed from me!

Sea lapping on a sandy beach

The shoreline of Baobab Beach, Madagascar

All that was needed here was a slight brightening which made the scene a little less ‘real’.

Ripples of pink and yellow water

Sunset reflected in the Narayani River, Nepal

No tricks here, this is straight out of the camera.

Rippled water reflecting a golden sunset

Sunset in the Okavango Delta, Botswana

And this is simply a tight crop of a wider sunset scene.

Rippled water with white and pink reflections

Flamingoes reflected in a lagoon, Cagliari, Sardinia

By cropping the birds themselves out of this shot I’ve created an abstract pattern with the colours of their feathers and legs.

Distorted reflection of bright green leaves

Leaves reflected in Fewa Lake, Pokhara, Nepal

This is straight out of the camera, the abstract shapes caused simply by ripples on the water.

Bright leaves reflected in water

Willow leaves reflected in a pond in the New Forest, England

But here I used two Nik Color Efex filters, sunlight and soft focus, to create a sense of lessened reality.

Blurred image of rushes

Bullrushes, New Forest, England

This was taken at the same pond, edited with Nik Color Efex varitone and soft focus filters.

Criss-cross pattern of leaves

Palm leaves at Cayena Beach, Colombia

These leaves however only needed a tight crop to make them seem more abstract, although I’ve also brightened them a little.

Spiky green leaves

Cactus in the Botanic Garden in Cagliari, Sardinia

Here I cropped an already tight shot even more tightly and flattened the light a little to give a two dimensional effect.

Close-up of cactus spikes softened and brightened

Cacti at the Centro Fotografico Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Oaxaca, Mexico

Another Nik Color Efex edit, using the vintage and sunlight filters.

Smudges of purple on a grey background with a single flower

Bougainvillea petals in a pool at the Centro Fotografico Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Oaxaca, Mexico

This is another straightforward shot; the blurring of all but one of the bougainvillea blooms is the result of their having sunk to the bottom of the shallow courtyard pool. I confess however that I moved the single one still floating to position it where I wanted it!

Three red petals against a blurred background

Poinsettia at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mexico

This is the most heavily edited shot in this post. I first cropped the flower so only three ‘petals’ (actually leaves) were left in shot. I sharpened and resized the resulting very small image with Topaz AI. Finally I edited it with Nik Color Efex varitone, sunlight and vintage filters!

Soft focus image of the centre of a flower

Tulip, Ealing, west London

A macro shot, edited with a soft focus filter

Jagged rocks

Tsingy rock formations, Madagascar

The rocks themselves do most of the work of a creating an abstract image, I simply cropped tightly on a particularly suitable section.

Coloured rock face mirrored in water

The crater wall reflected in the lake, Mount Paektu, North Korea

Again, the rocks did all the work with their zigzag layers already abstract and emphasised by the reflection and my zoomed-in shot.

Hazy blue mountains and clouds

View from Mount Paektu, North Korea

A tight crop from a wider landscape which I’ve softened with Nik Color Efex filters.

65 Comments

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