About the abstract photographs
These abstract impressions reflect how I see and feel a scene, sometimes calming and sometimes challenging. Many use subjects intentionally taken out of context or scale. Others are taken "out of time" with unusually long exposures. Some use special filters that are neither "right nor wrong", but convey something distorted and entirely different than a traditional photograph of the same scene.
Many of the unique textures come from flowers, fabrics, flowing water, and leaves that are combined with atypical lenses for the subject matter. In-camera white balance and saturation adjustments also alter the color and mood. Wind and other movements sometimes contribute to the structure.
All photographs are single exposures. In-camera and lens modifications provide a tremendous range of control, and post-processing of these abstract images is not different or more pronounced than for traditional photographs.
The choice of paper can add depth to an image. For many of these photographs, printing on cotton-rag fine-art papers contribute to the textures, an advantage of controlling the printing process in my own studio (see About the prints).
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| Abstract: Etude No. 1 in blue. |
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| Abstract: Girl with the Fiery Hair. |
How are the photos taken?
As an example, consider the "study in blue" at the right. This image is of laundry moving in a softly blowing breeze. The mood was of gently rolling fields of blue hills. To recreate this effect in the camera, I used dark neutral density filters to take a 10 second exposure on a tripod. A large aperture gives a soft focus with prominent folds appearing only where the fabric remained still for prolonged periods. The in-camera white balance is adjusted for a heavy blue cast, and the in-camera contrast and saturation are turned up to intensify the colors.
In another example, aspen leaves are photographed on a day when the intense Colorado winds were blowing at close to 50 miles per hour. Leaves were ripping off of the trees and cork-screwing through the air creating, in my mind, an impression of flying horizontal "fire" or braided auburn hair. To reproduce this feeling of fire, I adjusted the white balance and saturation to be heavily red. Stacked polarizing filters allowed a handheld eight second exposure with a 400mm lens which introduces an unsteadiness that enhances the corkscrewing streaks. A small aperature creates a medium-sharp focus and crisper edges than the "study in blue" described above. The result does not look like leaves and instead conveys the mood and feeling seen in my mind's eye -- intense fiery hair on an intensely windy day.