Abstraction and Light


When you think of abstract art, does photography enter your mind at all? Or do you only think of work on paper or canvas? After all, when people in general think of photography, they think of a realistic rendering of a scene from the real world. That’s true, but I contend that a photograph can both represent something from the real world and still be an abstract representation, or at least an “abstracted” version , or a small piece of something making the image abstract by definition.


I find myself drawn to abstract photography because it makes you stop and look. When I say “abstract”, I don’t necessarily mean just random shapes. I think of abstract as something depicted in a way that you would never see it in real life, or at least you would not notice in real life.

Case in point - I have always enjoyed fireworks. I think they are loads of fun. When I take my camera with me to a fireworks display, I never try to capture the traditional “pretty”, perfect firework bursts. I keep the shutter open hand-held and I let the light trails from the explosion draw their own patterns. The results are images from the real world, but not something you would ever see frozen in time with the naked eye.

When making an abstract piece of traditional art, it likely comes down to shapes, lines, negative space and sometimes color. When it comes to creating an abstract image in photography, it usually comes down to a matter of light and how it is interpreted and distributed or manipulated. After all, the word “photography” means “painting with light”. Light trails of any kind, deep shadows, reversing the image (making a “negative” version as in traditional film) can all render some interesting results.



Having subscribed to several high-end photo magazines that don’t cater to the wedding photographer crowd (and let me pause here and say I have tremendous respect for wedding photographers - I could never pull that off. It’s a skill set all its own and is not easy to do successfully by any means), these magazines to which I refer have offered me many ideas for how to bump a photo from ordinary to thought-provoking. I’ve also seen some photo publications in book form that supposedly show work by up-and-coming photography students that display work that is perhaps ONLY blurry (which can be effective if used in certain ways), or perhaps of subject matter rarely photographed because it’s, well, ugly, and they are only trying to create the shock factor, not something you would hang to enjoy and inspire.



In any case, the whole idea is to enjoy yourself, express yourself and have fun with it. At the same time, make something that might make someone stop and look and consider for more than a mere glancing moment.

 

 


 

For more of my images, please visit:

mary-bedy.pixels.com


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