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.

Robins & Reflections

Not much could be more springlike than a nest of baby robins just out of the eggs. Careful not to touch or disturb, I shot this with a telephoto a bit further away than the image looks. Two days later, the nest was an empty souvenir. Watching their tiny beating hearts moving their bodies was just awesome.

The reflection in the still streamway was made at Morton Arboretum in Lisle, the "outdoor museum of woody plants" that can be a paradise for a photographer in search of beauty.

Enough springscapes. Next post will be a new topic as yet to be determined.

Berries & Pathways

Berries on a Black Jetbead. Paths that wind invitingly through a sun-kissed but shaded forest. Blue Sky, green grass, and places to see while having fun in the sun. Oh, yes, spring offers the hope of nature, of renewal, of rebirth. Today the temperature rises above 40 with promise of further increases. Yes, spring is here.

More Springscapes in the next post.

Flowers and Lightning

Another look at the season I long for, spring. Two opposing Springscapes, bringing lightning and flowers. Of course, the old saw of April showers and May flowers reminds us of how the seeming opposites are intricately related; those of us who love spring look forward to both.

More springscapes in the next post.

Spring Arrives No Matter How it Looks

As I look out my window here on Pulaski Day, I see "lake effect snow" drifting down on my lawn even though Lake Michigan is a good 25 miles from here and we rarely see lake snow this far west. Despite this anomaly, Tom Skilling says that Meteorological Spring began yesterday, so I declare that Spring is Here.

Both of today's Springscapes are modern digital conversions of years-old slides shot either on the old Ektachrome (the landscape) or Agfachrome (the ball glove). But both remind me of the look of spring -- blue sky, blue water, birds, greenery and baseball. This week I will drop by a few more Springscapes to try to put these last vestiges of winter on the back burner!