I derive the greatest satisfaction from shooting abstracts. My education and experience as a psychological anthropologist might lead me to consider that my interest (neurotic obsession) with organization and order could be the result of my rigorous toilet training. The fact is that my brother is two and a half years older than me, and my sister is eighteen months younger. My parents had no time to offer me much of any kind of toilet training, let alone apply any rigor to the process. I was likely self-taught. Where the appeal for such order and organization comes from, I am not sure, but it exists for me in such a deep way. It is a fundamental part of my personality. I’m sure my children consider it an expression of a personality disorder; Pauline sure did. I made her nuts. Pauline was merely normal.
I have little doubt that this order and organization has been a strong influence on how I both see and capture my abstract images. The world is a very big and complicated place. I could point and frame that small box on the back of the camera (or my viewfinder) at anything. There are near an infinite number of scenes I could choose to capture. That I choose to focus on these small patterns is just one of the many reasons that I am thrilled not to be depending on my photography for a living. While I love what I capture in these images, I’ve had enough experience in photography that I have come to terms with my passion being an outlier in the photography world. I’ve been studying photography for a decade; I’ve immersed myself in coursework and I’ve studied other photographers' work. There just isn’t a lot of enthusiasm for what I am drawn to shoot. Lucky for me, I’m satisfied with entertaining myself and I’m okay with putting it out there for anyone else who might appreciate what I’m doing, because they experienced a rigorous toilet training.
I like the definition of abstract photography that is provided by My Modern Met:
But just what is it that makes a photograph abstract? It can seem difficult to pin down an exact definition, but there are many characteristics that make up abstract photography. Most commonly, abstraction takes place when a photographer focuses in on a fragment of a natural scene, isolating it from its context.
By zeroing in on the color, texture, line, shape, geometry, symmetry, or reflection of a scene, that photographer warps our perception of the real world and familiar objects. For instance, if you take a picture of a green apple, but zoom in on just a drop of water running down the bright green peel in a way that a viewer doesn't immediately recognize the object, but is more driven by the sensation, then you've taken a shot at abstraction.
https://mymodernmet.com/what-is-abstract-photography-definition/
That’s what I’m talking about. That is a wonderful description of what I do. Abstracts can be found everywhere, including in architecture. I have taken some interesting photographs of buildings that I would characterize as abstracts. My favorite abstracts come from the natural world, and I believe that a significant part of my attraction goes to the ways these abstracts are formed.
I discovered this fascination for my favorite kind of abstracts on June 10, 2016 on Good Harbor Beach in Gloucester. Pauline and I were in Gloucester for the wedding of good friends of ours. We were staying in a hotel that was a hop skip and jump from Good Harbor Beach. While Pauline was sleeping in, I took my camera for a walk down to the beach. It was low tide, and I was just blown away by the formations in the sand that I was seeing all around me, literally at my feet. I spent about five hours walking all over the beach and shooting these amazing patterns in the sand. As I was new to this endeavor, I hadn’t really given much thought to how all these creations were formed. I was just shooting the crap out of everything for hours. There were homes adjacent to the beach and I’m certain if there were people watching me while they were having their morning coffee, they must have thought I was totally nuts. I’m on the most beautiful beach with the ocean in front of me during a sunrise, and I’ve got my camera focused directly down at my feet while I’m dancing everywhere around this beach.
I did learn an incredibly valuable lesson during this first foray into the beach abstract. It is imperative that you quickly plan how to approach any of the available abstracts in front of you because if you haphazardly walk around the beach, you are going to put a footprint into a potentially fantastic image and ruin it.
If you would like to see the abstracts I took on Good Harbor Beach, they are posted on my Flickr account from the link below:
Nature is filled with symmetry and patterns. I’m an anthropologist, so I can’t explain why this is so, but I’m certain there is an evolutionary explanation for why nature exists in this fashion. It is miraculous. And it is beautiful. I’ve taken macro photography classes, so I’ve had the opportunity to look at plants under higher magnification than you are able to see with the eye. Just looking at the ball of spikes that are formed from the end cycle of a dandelion sort of says it all. This natural order and symmetry exists across the plant and animal kingdoms.
What is so thought provoking to me about the abstracts I capture on the beach is that these formations don’t exist as a part of an evolutionary process in the way I just described for plants and animals. They exist from the systematic rhythms that are found in nature. They are a by-product of this natural order. These patterns derive from the systematic action of tides and waves, from the quality of the sand, from the pitch of the beach, from the wind. These are processes that we learn about in geology, astronomy and meteorology. Each of these natural processes has its own complex origins. I took a year’s worth of geology classes. It was fascinating. The action of waves is fascinating. Why do we have wind? Do I look like a meteorologist? Why are there different qualities to sand, the color, coarseness, texture. All these processes work together to form the creations I find so appealing. It is an entirely cosmic proposition. I think about it all the time while I am shooting.
I have spent a lot of time on the beach watching all of this going on. I have learned to anticipate when I am watching a process that is going to turn into an amazing series of abstracts. For instance, there are parts of a beach where the sand has eroded from the waves such that water begins to flow across the beach each time waves come crashing onto the shore. The water will want to wash back down into the ocean as a result of gravity, but because there is a sand barrier between the beach and the ocean, the water is trapped and will begin to move sideways. It moves across the beach until it can find a low enough area to make it’s way back into the ocean. When this water action goes on repeatedly, you begin to see patterns in the ripples of the water. I know that in time, so long as the tide doesn’t rise, that the sand will be covered with patterns from this process. These similar actions are going on all over the beach in different ways. And each series of actions are going to result in different varieties of these patterns. The differences in these patterns is remarkable.
All these patterns on the beach exist for a very short period of time. Some exist for only seconds in their unique way. Some of them will remain for minutes. Rarely they are on the beach for hours. It is unusual to see the same patterns when I appear on the beach the next day. And even in those areas that are fertile ground for creating these abstracts because all the best conditions exist, they are likely going to be different from what I witnessed the day before. So much about how these appear from day to day is unpredictable.
The hunt involves finding them, seeing them and then framing them. It would be hard for me to describe just how gratifying it is for me when I am able to capture an image in just the way I desire, with all the qualities I am seeking, and that I know it exists for my camera in just fleeting moments. Not all my abstracts are created equal. I know what I like. I find them not just by identifying a portion of the beach with these formations. I also have to find where they exist in relation to the sun and the way the light reflects off them. There is a tremendous difference between the formations that are wet and those that are totally dry. There is even a qualitative difference that exists depending on the amount of water that remains on them. You can literally see the transformations as the waves recede back into the ocean. And it isn’t always possible to capture the best light, because there are times when the waves and the ocean block me from accessing the best view. I’m not allowed to get wet.
There are abstracts and then there are abstracts with reflections. Those are a bit more complicated because the reflections require water; water that becomes trapped within these patterns because of the way the sand has eroded and the pitch of the beach. The sun creates some interesting colors, lines, textures and patterns, as do the clouds and the color of the sky, particularly at sunrise and sunset. The combination of reflections and abstracts creates a great opportunity for creativity.
I’ve just described a whole lot of stuff that has little to do with a human being hopping around the beach with a camera. So, where is the artistic photography in this endeavor. I believe that beyond all the technical issues that surround operating the camera in a way to capture the scene as envisioned, the art comes down to seeing it (identifying a subject worthy of capture) and then framing it. These patterns almost always exist as a piece of a much greater whole. You can see what I’m describing from my seascapes that use these formations as my foregrounds. In order to create an artistic abstract, I have to find and frame the image in an interesting and compelling way. I believe this is where I employ my neurotic obsession with order and organization.
Nancy is going to take one look at this blog and suggest that I am using just way too many words in this thing. I will grant you that three pages on what I’m doing with my natural abstracts on the beach is a lot of thought about something that some, perhaps most, people will think is pretty trite. It might be. But if you have been reading all of my blogs, it is possible that this concentration on pretty sand formations beats the crap out of all of the horrible things that are going on in our world that are discouraging, depressing and demoralizing. I’m going to be grateful that I have amazing dirt to periodically distract me.
There are times when a subject hops its way into an abstract. This little triangle of birds causing circular ripples in the shimmering water was one of those. The silhouettes in this high contrast image also makes this photograph.
There are times when I come upon an abstract that is so amazing that I just want to stop and appreciate what I am looking at. This was definitely the case on both of these images at the top of the series below. I couldn't. Why? Because if I stopped to look at it for more than a few seconds, I knew that it would change and perhaps disappear. Thankfully, I have the image to appreciate. If I just captured the reflection without the beach as reference, it would be amazing, but not as much so as providing the context. It sort of blows the mind.
I love the third image because of the color. The sun was on the horizon and the golden hour was reflected in the water. You just don't see the water this color very often.
The last of this series is a great example of the play of water on the beach and the reflection of the sunrise. As the water recedes, the area in black will disappear. It is the contrast of the black pattern in the sand with the sunlight separating the brown sand above that makes this image.
Both of these images were taken during the sunrise when there was so much color under the layer of clouds. I loved that I was able to capture these colors in a beautiful pattern on the beach. I was able to do so because the waves were repeatedly covering this formation with water allowing for the reflections. I had to keep running in and out to capture the images as the waves gave me access every few moments.
What is so interesting about this image is that the same subject and colors of the reflection are separated by differing patterns in the sand. If you peek up into the top left corner, you can see that the water is already starting to recede and this reflection will quickly disappear. I was trying to get the change in pattern in the diagonal of the frame because I thought the contrast would be more dramatic.
In the next two images, the same blue sky and white clouds create a beautiful reflection in an interesting pattern of wet sand. Again, I think including the context of the sand above and to the left made the reflections more interesting. These are momentary opportunities, so I am having to make these artistic decisions on the fly.
The third image is a perfect example of watching an abstract formation being created by the ripple of waves going across the beach. The waves create an interesting pattern and the sunlight reflected off of the top half of the image makes for an interesting contrast from the bottom half; again on a diagonal. As I watch the pattern in these waves, I know that a pattern is being created in the sand below.
This image represents an even more interesting example of the creation of patterns in the sand. This portion of the beach is far enough from the ocean and up higher on the beach such that the waves are flattening out. The pitch of the beach is such that the water at the very top of the wave is moving across the beach. The diagonal line that looks something like a bicycle chain is created by a pattern in the sand that is already being formed below it. I'm not a big fan of sea foam, and I usually try to avoid it. But this image was so compelling for me that I tolerated its presence.
Again, these are waves moving across the beach, forming patterns below. I tried to capture the diagonal contrast again in this image but didn't have sufficient access to bring it about. The contrast of the white vs the dark below, as well as the hint of color in the pattern of the waves is beautiful.
The most pertinent thing I can say about the below image is, what the hell. And that's what I said when I saw it. There are just some of these phenomena that are hard to accept even as you stare at them. This is not a wave crashing onto the beach. This is water moving across the beach, and there isn't a trough separating the water from the sand above; again on the diagonal for contrast. This is just something I can't explain, but I can really appreciate it.
This is a second image I took shortly after the first as the water was receding and you can see the difference in the quality of the sand and specifically it's color and texture.
The two images below it show beautiful reflections of the sun in the wet sand and water to create the shimmering quality.
The last in this series is wet sand that is covered by the thinnest of layers of water that will dry in seconds. The sun, clouds and sky are reflected in a nice scene that also includes a little rainbow, if you look closely toward the right side. I really enjoy finding these little scenes within the abstract reflections.
This is another excellent example of a singular reflection of clouds and sky that are contrasted both from the pattern in the beach as well as the difference in layers of water on the sand. I separated these differences across the image. I love the dark buttons that exist across the image. These are all over the beach in different places and I think they could be from a release of air or oxygen from the sand. They create a really pleasing pattern if I try not to think about the hundreds of crabs drowning or holding their breath below the surface.
This first image in the series is a shot taken from the darker side of the area described above.
The second image is a beautiful reflection that will last for only a very short period of time. You can already see on the right that the reflection is disappearing as the water recedes and the dark brown sand takes over.
The final image in this series shows some wonderful ripples running across the beach in the thinnest layer of water after the wave returned to the ocean. The image takes on a very different quality even though it represents the very same reflection of the blue sky and white clouds that are found in these other abstracts.
Sorry, Nancy, I know that was a lot of words.
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