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Styles: Abstract and Arty
It's a bit of a cliche but the main rule of abstract is that there are no rules. You can basically do what you want – try new ideas – experiment. And of course, this is where digital photography comes into its own. Experimentation does not cost anything.
This is also the style of photography where the digital darkroom (i.e. photoshop, paint shop pro etc.) gets to spread its wings. The camera gives you the source material and what you do with it after that is limited only by your imagination.
The subject does not need to be important 
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What the picture is of is often far less important than how the picture looks. You are trying to create an interesting photograph, not a pretty scene.
Look for some of these in your picture:
- Shapes, lines and curves
- Colour
- Texture
- Repeated patterns
- Focus / out-of-focus
- Contrast
You can make an image where just one of these features in it, or try and combine a few of them. Abstract photography can be fun trying to spot an interesting opportunity. |
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Look for unusual opportunities 
Think of this as a bit of a challenge. Here’s some ideas:
- Pick a room in your house and see if you can capture a photograph of some day-to-day object.
- Try taking pictures that are deliberately out of focus or show an extreme amount of motion blur.
Macro is an abstract photographers best friend
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As humans we are so used to looking at things from a more ‘normal’ viewing distance. With abstract photography, look for opportunities at large magnification. Many compact cameras can focus as close as 1cm from the lens and this can give some really interesting results. If you have a DSLR camera, use either a macro lens (a feature of many zoom lenses) or get some extension tubes (see section on Macro Photography).
Photo right used with kind permission of Gale (FlickrID: gtj-45) |
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Light Painting
Make the light source your subject.
Set the camera on a tripod in the dark, select a long shutter speed, get in front of the lens and point a torch at the lens then draw patterns in the air with the torch. The example below uses a sparkler to celebrate the new year. Note that if you want to try this method of writing, you either need to write it backwards (so that the camera sees it the correct way) or mirror the image in software afterwards.
example of light painting - photo used with kind
permission of Linda Ullrich (Flickr ID: “Linda…”)
Use spot lights and torches
These can be used to get some interesting lighting effects.
Photo Manipulation Gone Mad!
You can really play around with some of the features in Photoshop / Paint Shop Pro which you would not normally get to use with any other style of photography.
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Photo by Colin
Picture of CD on fabric, converted to black and white, then tinted, and finally given a melting look using the mesh warp tool.
If you've read the quote by John Stathatos in the right column on this page, then you might agree that this would make a good album cover. |
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Photo by Colin
This is more arty than abstract.
Starting with a normal photograph, the image was created using features such as pure mono conversion, threshold layers, hand painting, and half-toning effect to create a picture in the style of pop artist Roy Lichtenstein. |
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Photographs
This is a site about photography so I'm sure you are expecting to see plenty of pictures.
For now, why not take a peek at the flickr galleries belonging to the two authors of this site.
Colin's Flickr Page
Phil's Flickr Page
"To be of any use to an artist, photographs must be rooted in a context, in a past; there is no such thing as a context-free photograph, and abstract photography is good for nothing but record covers."
- John Stathatos
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