Weekly Photography Challenge – Abstract Photography

• expressing ideas and emotions by using elements such as colors and lines without attempting to create a realistic picture
• A trend in painting and sculpture in the twentieth century. Abstract art seeks to break away from traditional representation of physical objects. It explores the relationships of forms and colors, whereas more traditional art represents the world in recognizable images.

Basically what that means if you’ve never done any abstract photography is shoot your subject in a way that it is either somewhat or totally unrecognizable. Concentrate on shapes, colors, and form and less on the thing in the photo. Shooting for abstract is a great exercise to help you train your eye to see “photographically” and get more creative.

So if you tend towards technically perfect images, it’s time to get outside your comfort zone and do something different. Make ones that are out of focus blobs of bokeh, under or overexposed, shadows, reflections, zoomed images, focused on patterns, macro photography or close-ups, and other crazy ideas. The whole idea here it to play around and see what you get. The key phrase for this challenge is:

What if I . . . ?

Need some more ideas? Here are a few images to get you started.

By Riccardo Cuppini

By @Doug88888

By Kevin Dooley

By @Doug88888

By @Doug88888

By Hector Lazo

By Tony Hall

By Geraint Rowland

By Claudio.Ar

Share your abstract photos!

Simply upload your shot into the comment field (look for the little camera icon in the Disqus comments section as pictured below) and they’ll get embedded for us all to see or if you’d prefer upload them to your favourite photo sharing site and leave the link to them.