Abstract photography along my travels

Experts say that abstract photography is about creating images that don’t tell at the first glance what they are about. When the viewer has to take a little or more time to realize what is in the picture, then you can say that you created an abstract work. Actually, with abstracts, viewers don’t even need to realize at all what the picture is about 🙂

** For instance: does this look like a dream castle in the horizon to you? Well, it’s nothing but the highway traffic in the wintertime, helped a little with some fancy coloring 🙂

And yes, travel photos can sometimes have an abstract quality. In fact, we can create great abstracts by just observing things around and be creative.

** This is an ancient Mayan wall in Lamanai, Belize:

But what are the criteria that can make photo an abstract or even “semi-abstract” image? I’m not a professional, but just an amateur photographer. I also never considered myself a good abstract photographer, therefore I cannot establish rules here. What I can do however, is to agree with other theoreticians who did. But what I’d like to mention from my own experience is that you don’t really need rules for that. There is actually no secret to divulge – all you need is to play around with your camera 🙂

** I like to take photos through a wet window:

Some digital alteration doesn’t hurt either:

So, here are a few conditions to consider, and elements that can create abstract photography. I’ll illustrate them with my own images. I uploaded a few on my Abstract gallery at FAA, but most of them are stored on SmugMug. Just click on them for a larger better view.

LINES AND SHAPES IN NATURE: Nature gives us many opportunities to take simple photographs. All you have to do is see them. ** Here for instance is a tropical plant leaf I photographed in Mexico. I lust love the simple lines created by nature.

… And here is an abstract digital image I created from a close-up on a barrel cactus:

MAN-MADE LINES AND SHAPES: It’s all about observing.

COMPOSITION AND CROPPING can make abstract images from the most common things.

LIGHTS at night can look like something else…

MOTION: creativity is a good friend of abstract photography

TEXTURES can create decorative abstracts:

ARCHITECTURAL ELEMENTS like window reflections:

CLOSE-UP’s can create mystery 🙂

A DIFFERENT POINT OF VIEW – like this window of a bar viewed from outside.

CRAFTS can have an abstract feeling in a picture too.

Wow, didn’t realize that I had so many abstract photos from my travels. There are more, but maybe for another time 🙂 Thank you for visiting.

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Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #74: Abstract | FOWC with Fandango — Divulge |