After posting my last couple of Blogs on here I have spoken with a few other photographers about the concept of the abstract image. From which we generally came to the conclusion that although an abstract image can be viewed on its own, it is probably better presented as part of a larger body of work, but not necessarily just a collection of abstract images, which was my first approach to presenting this work. They could for instance enrich the viewing experience by being present a long side more classical landscape images, drawing the viewers attention to a partial detail of shape and form, or possibly colour as I think my first Blog illustration with images of in the forest in spring.
So in this third Blog on abstract image creation, I am not only hoping to share more technique ideas with you for image creation, but also develop some ideas of how abstracts may be used to create a specific project. at the onset of this Blog I promised to keep things simple, so I am not going to go into too great depth here, but nevertheless I think it is fundamental that a photography thinks about their work, and I would suggest if all as you do is press the button of the camera almost on impulse, you are not so much a photographer as someone who has a camera and occasionally takes "snap shots" with it. I personally hate that word "snap shot" and when a client says that is what they want ...I am so tempted to tell them to find a "Snapshoter" rather than a "Photographer" as a "snap shot" to me is the creation of an image without any thought, it may well document something which may have a practical use, but at no point has any creativity thought been applied.
As an illustration I am here going to share my thought process with you in respect of a photographic project that would involve abstract images and one of things I considered was instead of the camera being restricted as it has so far in respect of abstract images creation, such as the movement but whilst on a tripod, mainly to to ensure the abstract image st
ill had some recognizable form, what if the camera could move more freely over a larger area and yet still have a ridged axis to keep that element of recognisable form ? One such possibility is for the camera to be moving in a vehicle. These initial thoughts being tested yesterday by using my camera on a steam train simply supported on an open window. I like these shots and think there is great scope to develop this idea to capture a particular journey in a very interesting way.
For these shots I used a wide angle lens and kept that camera still by resting it on a window ledge, the shutter speed varied, but on average I found from a second to about 1/3 of a second to be most effective for what I wanted, which was to get the idea of movement without loosing totally the landscape the train was passing. One thing worth noting is that objects close by receive more motion blur that objects much further away.
A further dimension I thought about was to get other passages into my shots, the great thing about a steam train compared to a modern high speed train is people aren't as enclosed, so their natural response is to look and lean out through the window etc. Where two trains pass the speed is usually slow allowing shots to be taken of passengers on the other train, a reasonably fast shutter speed is needed here if you want to get some detail of the people in the carriages. A further progression could be to take multiple images with the camera or to digitally bled several images later as illustrated here with the very bottom image. I also found this image as a monochrome some how seemed to work better for this approach creating that timeless look possibly more genuine of a steam train journey.
I hope that you found this of interest and possibly some creative inspiration and would very much like to receive feedback from you.
Marc;-)Labels: marc byram photography tips technique how to abstarct images project ideas "marc's photo tips"
