Post your abstract photographs here

[GLS]

Linhof Technikardan S45, Nikkor-M 9/300, Lee Orange 21, T-Max 100 (EI 200), N+1 dev in DD-X

--- by atomstitcher, on Flickr

 

[Moose22]

 

[Stephen Benskin]

Agave 17, Los Angeles, CA

 

[ced]

Treport, France.

 

[Stephen Benskin]

Discarded Headstones, Wales

 

[Stephen Benskin]

,Agave 9, Los Angeles, CA

 

[Stephen Benskin]

Happy Halloween
St. Leonard's, Hythe, England

 

[Moose22]

Happy Halloween
St. Leonard's, Hythe, England

View attachment 289569

Perfect for the season!

By the way, I take one or two pictures of the Agave every roll or two. Differing light, angle, exposure. The lab that develops my color must really wonder why I've taken a dozen frames of the same stupid cactus! I've just started with xtol on B&W at home, and there's a cactus shot on every roll there, too. This is your fault Stephen.

 

[Stephen Benskin]

Perfect for the season!

By the way, I take one or two pictures of the Agave every roll or two. Differing light, angle, exposure. The lab that develops my color must really wonder why I've taken a dozen frames of the same stupid cactus! I've just started with xtol on B&W at home, and there's a cactus shot on every roll there, too. This is your fault Stephen.

Thought it would be fun. People generally don't want these types of images on their walls, so there's little opportunity for them to be seen.

I gladly accept the blame.

 

[jeffreyg]

Harpa Reykjavik, Iceland

http://www.jeffreyglasser.com/

http://www.sculptureandphotography.com/

 

[Stephen Benskin]

Icicles, Lee Vining, CA

 

[bluechromis]

Great example, I find this to be anything but tiresome.

Don't have many abstracts. I shoot social documentary of people. I got some freaked out HDR of people, but most are just straight photography.

Here is one that may fit in...I shot it in the coat room where I was working as a process cameraman.

'Coat Hanger' 1974. Hasselblad 500 CM

I didn't like the work print and trashed it partially developed. A week later when cleaning out the trash in the darkroom I saw that it was partially solarized and the chemicals had developed into an interesting patina and I liked it. (Actually this is a recreation, the original is in LACMA) I finished processing, dry mounted it and showed it to the then curator of LACMA and they took it into the permanent collection.

That was back in the 70's when you could get the curators on the phone for an appointment. Nowadays you can't even find out who the curator of photography is for many museums...it is top secret.

 

[bluechromis]

Yes I am very strict

The 'abstract' originally is a genre in painting. The point is that there is a fundamental difference between an abstract painting and an abstract photo in the way you work.

Making an abstract painting is a straightforward process. Every stroke of the brush simply adds something to the canvas until it is ready.

Making an abstract photo is much more complicated because the camera registers an image that is inherently not abstract. So you need an extra process to convert the photo to abstract, which can be done by cropping, post-processing on the computer, walking over it while it is raining, or any other manipulation you can think of.

What I say in my post #23 is that any reference to this process, or to the source of the image, nullifies your attempt to get an abstract image.

For example, you can start taking a picture from a dog, and then you modify a print from the photo using a special chemical process to make it abstract.

However, if you tell an observer that the abstract photo is actually a modified dog, then the observer suddenly doesn't perceive the image as abstract anymore. This effect is even worse when you give the abstract a title of an object in real life (for example "Lame dog"), because you are instantly sabotaging your own attempt to get something abstract. A dog is not abstract and an abstract object can't be a picture of a dog, they are mutually exclusive.

I find a narrow definition of abstract as a piece has absolutely no recognizable relation to the external world overly narrow. This site says "There are three basic types of art: representational, abstract, and non-objective. Abstract art typically starts with a subject that exists in the real world but then presents those subjects in a new way"
https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-representational-art-182705
Of course, that is just the opinion of the authors of that page. Some of the dictionary definitions of abstract art will say that it does not represent the external world. But the definition does not say that there cannot be stylized references to things that exist in the world. I think it makes sense to say that most all art falls on a continuum between purely representational and purely non-representational. To have a strict definition of abstract as purely non-representational seems like the other side of an absolutist coin with on the other side the f/64 school credo that all art photography must be a "straight" depiction of the material world. To me the word non-objective better describes the highly non-representational stuff and abstract to encompass works in the middle between the extremes such as German Expressionist paintings. If we are not allowed to use abstract to describe works in the middle, then we shall need to designate another term for that. Although there is a fuzzy overlap between abstract and non-objective, I think in the art world there is a general sense that there is a distinction between the two.

 

[Stephen Benskin]

Agave 23, Los Angeles, CA

 

[Stephen Benskin]

Chipped Paint (Negative Image)

 

[JensH]

Chipped Paint (Negative Image)

View attachment 290631

Fantastic!

 

[Moose22]

Fantastic!

Agreed!

Great abstract. I'd have to think about it a bit before I realized it was paint if I hadn't read the title.

 

[Stephen Benskin]

Thanks guys. You've made my day.

 

[mohmad khatab]

 

[DonJ]

Chipped Paint (Negative Image)

View attachment 290631

Stephen, that’s an excellent photo. Old paint is a great subject.

 

[GLS]

Chipped Paint (Negative Image)

View attachment 290631

Nice work. Almost looks like a flock of bats or something.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Many nice pictures. But there's no such thing as a photographic abstraction. Every one of them is something objective, actually seen, something extant and then corralled, composed, and framed by the camera and our mind. To be an abstraction, you'd have to go in the darkroom and randomly swirl or blotch around developer or dyes or something like that, and not even use a camera. Pattern studies intended to resemble abstract paintings are not the same thing. And as far as I'm concerned, that's a good thing. I too enjoy discovering fugues and waves and shattered patterns in the real world, and how we either consciously or subconsciously respond to those, and how we can capture that moment on film and relive the Gestalt of it, and visually convey that same feeling to others. Sorry to go philosophical here; maybe this should be discussed under an Aesthetics thread instead. But because some on the foregoing images are exemplary of exactly what I'm trying to explain, it seemed appropriate to throw in my two cents worth.

In other words, such photographs stand on their own, and should not even need to borrow the term, abstract, from the art world. Yes, it's a convenient pigeonhole on a forum like this one. But is that what is really happening when we take these pictures - are we really just trying to mimic something else? I would hope not.

 

[DonJ]

Many nice pictures. But there's no such thing as a photographic abstraction. Every one of them is something objective, actually seen, something extant and then corralled, composed, and framed by the camera and our mind. To be an abstraction, you'd have to go in the darkroom and randomly swirl or blotch around developer or dyes or something like that, and not even use a camera. Pattern studies intended to resemble abstract paintings are not the same thing. And as far as I'm concerned, that's a good thing. I too enjoy discovering fugues and waves and shattered patterns in the real world, and how we either consciously or subconsciously respond to those, and how we can capture that moment on film and relive the Gestalt of it, and visually convey that same feeling to others. Sorry to go philosophical here; maybe this should be discussed under an Aesthetics thread instead. But because some on the foregoing images are exemplary of exactly what I'm trying to explain, it seemed appropriate to throw in my two cents worth.

In other words, such photographs stand on their own, and should not even need to borrow the term, abstract, from the art world. Yes, it's a convenient pigeonhole on a forum like this one. But is that what is really happening when we take these pictures - are we really just trying to mimic something else? I would hope not.

Yes, clearly we're photographing things, and not producing true abstractions; we're producing photographs which can be viewed without the need to know what the subject is. "Non-representational" might be a better fit, but that's less likely to be understood by the average person. "Abstract" is a familiar term, and also saves us from having to describe our photography by telling people that it's "non" something.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Many nice pictures. But there's no such thing as a photographic abstraction. Every one of them is something objective, actually seen, something extant and then corralled, composed, and framed by the camera and our mind. To be an abstraction, you'd have to go in the darkroom and randomly swirl or blotch around developer or dyes or something like that, and not even use a camera. Pattern studies intended to resemble abstract paintings are not the same thing. And as far as I'm concerned, that's a good thing. I too enjoy discovering fugues and waves and shattered patterns in the real world, and how we either consciously or subconsciously respond to those, and how we can capture that moment on film and relive the Gestalt of it, and visually convey that same feeling to others. Sorry to go philosophical here; maybe this should be discussed under an Aesthetics thread instead. But because some on the foregoing images are exemplary of exactly what I'm trying to explain, it seemed appropriate to throw in my two cents worth.

In other words, such photographs stand on their own, and should not even need to borrow the term, abstract, from the art world. Yes, it's a convenient pigeonhole on a forum like this one. But is that what is really happening when we take these pictures - are we really just trying to mimic something else? I would hope not.

We are moving in towards the subject so that the view cannot easily discern what the subject matter is.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Doesn't matter, close or not. It's still objective. Quite a few people even use microscopes for "abstract" image content. It's still not abstraction. I have no qualms with using the expression casually, like is done here for pigeonhole sharing purposes. But philosophically, if we're within the compass of "discovered" photographic imagery (versus outright painting using PS or whatever), then EVERYTHING is representational. And why it that important? Otherwise, we're on a slippery slope downhill where nothing we actually see counts. Just still frames from a teenage blockbuster movie minus all real actors and all real scenery. Lardasstography at a computer station. It's already happening. Well, if people enjoy that, fine. But don't call it photography! Let us keep relishing those compositions we actually discover. The hunt is just as important and thrilling as the kill.