General Photography

General digital photography tips for focus, composition and more

Niche Photography

Specific tips for landscapes, portraits, black & white and more

Promoting & Selling

Photography business tips for promoting & selling your photos

Resources & Gear

Take your photos to the next level with these resources & gear

Reviews & News

Check out the latest photography news & reviews

Home » Headline

Abstract Photography

Submitted by TJ Tierney on December 14, 2009 – 10:19 am
1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (No Ratings Yet)
Loading ... Loading ...
Print This | 2 Comments
The world of water
©Snap®. All Rights Reserved

Abstract photography is unlike most other types of photography – rules, such as composition and accurate focusing hold no values. The abstract photographer uses his creative imagination to create stunning works of art.

Abstract photography is a popular form of art and the rewards for a good abstract photographer are most worthwhile. Art buyers pay large amounts for good abstract work.

What is abstract photography?

Abstract photography is a process of using colours and patterns combined to create an image, with no true meaning or no clear subject involved. Abstract photography is not necessarily going to mean the same thing to everyone. Abstract photography leaves more to the imagination and helps us concentrate on texture and colour rather than the whole subject.

If you are looking to try a new form of photography, abstract photography will certainly be an enjoyable challenge and very rewarding if you master the true art.

Abstract: Ice
©re_birf. All Rights Reserved

Creating an abstract image can be easy – creating a great abstract image is difficult. One of the most simple ways of creating an abstract image is by using water and your cameras’ shutter combined. Shooting fast flowing water, with a slow shutter speed of one second will give you a blur effect. This is quite simple to do, but will it look attractive?

This will depend on light – shooting water with a slow shutter speed when the sun is low in the sky will give your image more attractive colours. Different films will also produce different colours. Adding colour filters will also improve your abstract photography. If you are using a digital camera, filters can be added later with Photoshop.

Using a slow shutter speed to shoot a flag blowing in the wind will also give you an abstract image. The trick to keeping abstract photography attractive when using your cameras’ shutter is to crop tightly. Fill the view finder with the blur image.

Lotus
©Romain Pomeh. All Rights Reserved

Some kinds of macro photography can be considered as abstract. Close-ups of flowers and other plant life will make great abstract subjects. As with shooting water – macro abstracts should be cropped tightly and the image should have a theme of colour. Some street lights can also create abstract photographs.

Every where we go we are surrounded with colour, textures and patterns. Patterns make for great abstract images. New patterns are formed by nature every day and this is the best place to start to create marketable abstract photographs.

There are no guidelines for creating good abstract images, just use your imagination along with the natural world to create your master piece.

Like this post? Share or Bookmark it:

  • Digg
  • Technorati
  • Twitter
  • StumbleUpon
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • FriendFeed
  • Google Bookmarks
  • E-mail this story to a friend!

You might also like:

Contributed by TJ Tierney

TJ Tierney is an award winning photographer and a freelance writer. To find out more information visit his free photography and digital photography site. His site also contains a free photography competition

2 Comments »

Leave a comment!

Add your comment below, or trackback from your own site. You can also subscribe to these comments via RSS.

Be nice. Keep it clean. Stay on topic. No spam.

You can use these tags:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

This is a Gravatar-enabled weblog. To get your own globally-recognized-avatar, please register at Gravatar.