Summary – Learning to make abstract photos is a good way to learn to see (not just look). Also, abstracts are design-based (not subject-based) and thus are an excellent genre for learning visual design. Part-1 of a series.
” You can observe a lot by watching ” (Yogi Berra)
Mission: Photography Improvement
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, involves
Improving your ability both to See & to Compose
Your 6-part mission assignment is described below
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.
Mark Rothko Made Me Do It 😉
A large-scale found abstract
Background is miles wide & deep
Foreground shape is about 15 feet long
Succeeds in spite of its size by isolating
Person next to me looked at: a sunset (with a tree nearby)
I saw: a shape silhouetted by lovely color gradations
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Or how about displaying it like this
It’s a design, not a picture of a subject
Orientation is dictated only by a subject
Up, up & Away
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Sunset over the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia
How many times have you viewed an image like today’s above?
Not often, if ever, I’d guess
This location, a popular site, can look like a tripod farm at times
Giving rise to 1000’s upon 1000’s of this next version
I prefer to show you something that you didn’t see
Even as you stood “looking” right next to me!
Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.
Jonathan Swift
Everyone can do the obvious – and does
Like the version above made at the same time & location
Nice enough BUT repetitive – not original
It’s what every member of a photo workshop
Almost without exception
Came home with after going here with the leader
The differences being only in technical executions
.
Most workshops are more properly named
Trophy Image Capture Outings
Learn to do what everyone else has already done
Dare to be different!!
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Looking & Seeing
Looking is passive
You simply show up & open your eyes
You’re aware of familiar objects like trees and roads
Seeing is actively engaging your brain – primarily its right side
Taking time to be aware of things beyond the obvious
You see shapes, lines, colors, tones, textures
The objects of visual design
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Visual Design addresses the grammar and syntax for creating
2-dimensional visual objects
It specifies the language of composition
The how & where of
Placing visual design objects in the picture space
The foremost teacher of visual design is Freeman Patterson
His book can provide greater photography improvements
Than any new piece of equipment you might next add
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Consider the above to be a two-step process:
1. The seeing-step generates the input to step 2
2. The visual design step tells how to arrange this input in the design space (your viewfinder in this case)
Done well, no Photoshop-type step-3 should be needed
Except the normal tonal & color contrast work
Step-1 plus step-2 equal an abstract photograph
1+2+ over-the-top digital filtering is abstract digital art
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Your Mission –
With the above short description on looking, seeing & visual design
Make six abstract photos as follows
Three done indoors and three outdoors
A macro/close-up, a wide-angle and a telephoto
You can try for twelve by making
Six found and six created abstracts
(the difference is exactly what the names suggest)
You must use the following as your criteria for abstract –
An abstract contains no immediately identifiable subject
A key abstract “how-to” is to isolate, isolate –
and then isolate some more
Just like “when you think you’re close enough,
move closer” (which is a way to help isolate)
This being the case, the macro/close-up will be easiest
The wide-angle will be the most difficult
Do these on separate days & concentrate on one at a time
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0 thoughts on “Looking, Seeing, Visual Design – and Abstracts”
Welcome to abstracts. Check tomorrow’s blog for my own personal “1st abstract” in this challenge series. I plan to present 1 or 2 regularly along with a personal image critique – including follow-up attempts to improve on this first one.
I will accept your challenge, thanks