One More Polar Coordinate

On second thought, we will hold off the new direction for one more day to look at another strange abstract effect from the Polar Coordinates. In an email to a friend who had seen the previous post, I was writing about where to find the effect -- it is a Photoshop Filter Distort selection -- and I realized I had limited my fun with that filter.

The previous post was like most of my Polar productions, which would only be a dozen or so. In each case, I used a panoramic photo or cropped one from a traditionally-shaped photo. In each case, I selected a photo with a clear three-layer arrangement -- the river below, the bridge between and the sky above, for example. That produces the logic of the prior post, with the river at the core, the bridge and its crane as the highlight and the sky as the background. I will of course continue to experiment with such pictures.

But as I checked on the use of the filter, I happened to have a non-panoramic photo, one with nothing like the three-stripe arrangement mentioned above, and I used the process on it purely to refresh my memory on the use of the filter. I quickly used SAVE AS to hold that image and later returned to decide if I wanted to keep it. What do you think? I definitely like it and plan to do further experimentation with it.

Meanwhile, thanks for the help with experimenting in a new direction, Laura. We will move in another direction in the next post. Maybe.

Abstract from Manipulation

Look at this abstract which looks so strangely concrete. Check it carefully and see if you can spot the Illinois River in the center and awhirl around the river -- a bridge, crane and all. Look closer and you can find the seam, relatively cleverly hidden, where Photoshop changed its normal left/right coordinates to polar coordinates. Essentially, if you find the seam, you have located the left and right edges of a relatively normal panoramic photo of the bridge with the river below. The magic effect spins the base into a circular center and wraps the image for some fascinating semi-abstracts. Try it sometime!

Our next post? In a different direction to be chosen soon.

Abstract Processing

Another place to find abstracts would be in the post-processing. Whether by intent or by accident, when an image does nothing for you, you can try something else. Often a change of color, a blurring, a creative crop will create a completely new image. There are times when dropping color overlays over such an image, one by one, will result in finding just the right color. Image manipulation under pressure can be demanding work, but this can and should be fun.

An intentional abstract from a very different effort in our next post.

Abstracts Abound

One of the many enjoyable aspects of photography is finding the beauty of abstraction in the most unlikely places. In my mind, visual art is abstract when it uses color, shape and line to draw a pleasing work that does not reference a specific reality. And "abstract" is not a "thing." And sometimes the thing becomes the abstract.

Here are two abstracts that are such "found" items. And they are part of very specific things. Many modern buildings feature collections of reflecting windows -- mirrors, if you will -- that tend to blend the building with its neighbors. This one in Anchorage, Alaska reflects another building in an interesting way. The other abstract is from an interesting fountain in The Chicago Botanic Garden, featuring a line of water jets with one jet out of sync.

Finding such abstracts is always a high point of a photo shoot. Abstracts can also be generated by post-processing magic. We will look at a couple of these in the next post.