Friday 15 May 2020

How to photograph Abstracts

In this article, I will be briefly  looking at how to photograph Abstracts.

What is Abstract Photography?

Abstract photography is a style of photography that allows the photographer to express ideas, emotions, shapes and colour impact with the final image, instead of creating the realistic representation of the subject. This allows the photographer to go beyond the visual representation to focus on the interesting elements of the subject as well as focusing on their creativity.

Here are few tips on how to take abstract photographs:

1) Keep the subject simple, concentrate on shapes, textures or colour of the subject
2) Interesting composition will add impact to the final image
3) Keep an eye on lighting as this will add interesting elements to the image
4) Explore different view points, this can take creativity to a different level
5) Look out for colours and textures
6) Use an editing software to explore your creativity

Below are a few examples of Abstract photographs,

 This image (Number 1) was taken on a rainy day through the window to show splashes of colour.

Lights

This photograph (Number 2) was take at 'Crocodiles Of The World', Brize Norton (Oxford). The baby crocodile was under water with its head out of the water. I placed the camera very close to the glass and photographed his body under the water and the head above the water. This image has been cropped to create an abstract image. The original image was not photographed in this format. (See the original image at the bottom of the page).


Scales

This image (Number 3) was taken on my daily walks near where I live. It had rained the day before and there were lots of puddles, I found the reflections of the trees and the textures of the road very interesting. To emphasise the images, it was converted into black white in post production. (See the original image at the bottom of the page).


Reflections


This is an image (Number 4) of my Oscar fish, I photographed this with my mobile phone placed on the glass tank. I focused on the colours and patterns of the scales of the fish.

Fish Scales


This image (Number 5) is of a very large leaf photographed from the bottom looking up. In post production, the image has been super imposed with the photograph above of the reflections in the puddle. The reason I decided to combine two images was because it added interesting textures to the top left on the image. The saturation of the final image was decreased. (See the original images at the bottom of the page.)

Leaf


This image (Number 6) of red leaves has also been super imposed in post production with an image of wood grain. The saturation was also decreased in this image. (See the original images at the bottom of the page.)

Red leaf


The two images of the crocodile; before and after on the right (Number 1)

 


The two images leaf and reflections in a puddle used to create the final image on the right.
The image in the middle (puddle and reflections) is the original of the Photograph number 3.




The image of the bench and the red leaves used to create the final photograph number 6



I hope this brief article helps you to photograph amazing Abstract images.
Bhupinder Ghatahora ABIPP, ARPS, ASWPP
Ghatahora Photography
info@ghatahora.co.uk
Facebook