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Photographs lend themselves well to abstractions; that is, you can create an abstract work of art using a photograph and photographic techniques. Let’s look at a few ways you can create abstraction photographs:
These are enough ideas to get you started. But there’s no limitation on the techniques you can use to make abstract art in photography.
What’s the definition of abstraction for the purposes of this article? It’s simply abstracting something that’s an unreal image from something that’s real. Or creating something from scratch that’s unreal. And it can have a beauty all its own. For instance, an abstract painting is an artists’ abstraction of a visual display from their own thoughts, imagination, or dreams. In this article, the focus is on abstracting a photograph from a recognizable image (photograph) or work of art.
You can easily photograph almost anything in a way that shows it as an abstraction. But the abstraction can be recognized by the viewer. This is a popular and effective way to use abstraction as an artistic tool.
You can also easily photograph almost anything in a way that shows it as an abstraction, but one that a viewer cannot recognize. This is also a popular way to use abstraction as an artistic tool.
You can photograph other abstract art to achieve an abstraction. If you simply copy a work of abstract art, there’s often not much creativity involved. Nonetheless, works of art come in all shapes and configurations. If you shoot an abstract work of art in an unusual way or shoot only part of an abstract work of art, you can create something fresh.
You can use a filter to make a photograph abstraction. For instance, there are filters to make your photograph look like a Van Gogh or numerous other artists. This is an easy and fun way to make abstraction. And such abstractions can be very attractive and worthy of printing for use or for sale.
You aren’t limited to using only one filter to manipulate a photograph. You can run a photograph through numerous filters to get a very creative abstraction photograph.
Photoshop has lots of processes for turning photographs into abstract photographs. Let you imagination run loose.
You can combine photographs to get an abstract photograph. Typically, a physical collage can contain almost anything physical such as fabrics, newsprint, pieces of glass or wood, artistic painting, etc. The end result is an abstract work of art. Likewise, you can do the same with multiple photographs. Keep in mind that photographs can be opaque (normal) or have a degree of transparency (rendered in Photoshop) that enables a wide range of creativity.
AI is the newest way to make abstractions. You feed words into an AI generator and get a result. In other words, you play around with words instead of with Photoshop digital tools.
The trouble with most of these techniques is that you can play around with them forever. It becomes an addiction-like disease. You lose all sense of time, reality, and family. The only cure is an ice-cold bath and a dozen sessions of psychiatric therapy.
Most of us take a lot of photographs. Then we pick out the good ones and post them someplace digitally or print them. But the ratio is typically large. At least for me it is. I get one good (artistic) photo out of about 300 shots or more.
It is in reviewing all the discards that you may find some abstraction potential. A photograph that isn’t traditionally attractive may have some unique quality making it ideal for an abstraction. Keep that in mind as you look over your photographs.
Clearly, normal photographs communicate much about ourselves. And isn’t that the whole point of taking photographs: expressing ourselves. But abstractions go a step beyond normal communication. They better communicate phenomena not to be found in normal photographs—phenomena such as dreams, unnatural visions, and elemental sensitivity. Indeed, abstractions are us.
Pagosa Springs Photography Club 