Abstract

Abstract-
The term abstract has been around since the 19th century in the form of art. Abstract has been used in many art movements such as impressionism and expressionism. Abstract is defined as using colour, shape, form and line to create a composition. As digital photography progressed, abstract photography became more popular and experimental as the use of software made it easier for the photographers to create the more abstract genre.

Mood board on Abstract photography

Shinichi Maruyama-

Maruyama was born in Japan in 1968 and moved to New York in 2003. In her series of 'nude,' which contains abstract photographs of movement of the body, is created by taking 10,000 photographs of an individual dancer. By putting these photographs together, it creates the final image to appear to be something different to what it actually is. 

Moodboard on Shinichi Maruyama

Maruyama's series called 'nude' presents a dancer shot over 10,000 shots put together creating an abstract effect. In this particular photograph, firstly, you notice that it has been taken in a studio environment. The background is black and there is negative space around the dancer herself. Objectively, the subject, which is the dancer, is placed in the middle of the composition. Her stance, from what you can see, is crouching, almost as if about to jump. The abstract effect created in this photograph shows the dancer to produce the same movement over again whilst the 10,000 frames are being shot. Subjectively, this creates an angel like blurred motion. The dancer has clearly moved her arms continuously up and down, supposedly a bird. The outcome represents a form which resembles a bird in motion, or an angel like figure, which then creates the abstract element, as the form of the body has been transformed into something completely different. Subjectively, the pieces are created to defer from the beauty of the normal body shape, Maruyama seems to represent the body in a beautiful way which we are normally not used to and what we do not associate with. This image makes me feel very overwhelmed. The natural body being transformed into something abstract has a definite beauty to it which can make the viewer look upon in awe. 

Michael Taylor-
Born in Northern Ireland in 1961, he went on to study Fine art, design, computer science and zoology. In 2009 , light then became Taylor's main subject. He says the his aim is to let light reveal itself.

Moodboard on Michael Taylor

Photographer Michael Taylor uses light as his main medium to create his abstract photography. Objectively, we can see the human body as the subject. The body is placed in complete darkness. The only light source is being reflected upon the subject. The body is crouched. You can only distinguish the outline of the body from the irregular position. The lighting that is being projected, is of a blue tone. It's reflective surface represents the sea and ripples in the waves. The ambiguity of the body creates the abstract effect to Taylor's photographs. Subjectively, the subject seems to be hiding. The head is turned away from the camera. Also in Taylor's other works, the face is completely missing and the only element that is lit up is the body. This could represent someone's inner feelings. The position of the body, crouched and small could represent the insecurity of the person. The lighting then, could represent the mood in terms of colour- the blue comparing to a sad, lonely, yet calm sense created by the ripples. 

Justin Green-
Green's photography focuses more on the urban life and finding the abstract in the urban environment. His aim is for people to see the fine detail, symmetry, decay and texture that people in everyday life might miss.

Moodboard on Justin Green 

Objectively, there are diamond shapes evenly spaced one after the other. The shapes are reflective surfaces which are acting as mirrors. Deeper into the photograph, the mirrors present the reflected image from what was obviously opposite. Here, you can make out a building, to which looks like a block of flats. The mirrors distort the background image, therefore making it uneven. This almost creates an illusion effect. This then makes the viewer look deeper within the photograph to work out what is actually present within the detail. Essentially, the photograph has clearly been cropped to create the abstract effect, almost mimicking the shapes present in photograph itself. The photograph is cropped to a square which is similarly a rotation to the diamond shape within the photograph.  

My Abstract Photography

For my experiments, I decided to try and recreate photographs by the photographer  Michael Taylor. In his photographs, he uses light as the source to his abstract photography. I brought in some lights, to which I wrapped around myself. Firstly, the photographs taken, I was standing still, the photographs are quite close to me. The aim of this, was to portray light on areas of my face and body only using the fairy lights, this then would light up parts of my face. Depending on the angle and cropping, this creates an abstract effect similar to Taylor's. Secondly, I decided to use some movement into the composition by setting my camera to a lower shutter speed to create the blurred lighting

Another experiment, relating to Taylor, I used a blue filter that was placed over the light. My positioning, I took inspiration from Taylor's pieces as the subjects in his photographs shy away from the camera and present the body in an abstract way. I turned my body around so that that viewer would have to look harder at the image. I then cropped the photographs to create a more abstract effect. The shirt that I am wearing, also adds to the abstract vision I am trying to create. The pattern on my shirt drown out my body shape making it harder to visualise what part of my body it is.

As part of experimentation for abstract photography, we went out and around the school to look for some natural sources of abstract photography. Here is a selection of photographs that I have taken which link to this genre. As you can see, there are a variety of different shapes, lines and subjects. I found that the best types of abstract photography that I captured, came when I got up close and personal with the objects and also looking at the subject with different angles, which can create an abstract composition in itself.

Further Experiments;

As a further experiment to abstract photography, I decided to take some photographs around the home. My main influence for these, was the photographer Justin Green. Green's photography is quite urban, therefore, I took my camera out to my garage. In there, we keep old items and everything and anything. This gave me a wide variety of items to use for creating abstract photographs. My favourite out of the selection, are the ones of the glass windows that are placed on the garage door. The reflective surface contains round, circular shapes, similar to large raindrops. I got up close and took these photographs, then looking back you would not know what the subject is. I found that these were very similar to the image I analysed for Green, picking up on abstract in the urban environment.