Warped Wednesday – pt. 7

Last week, the focus of the images was on the various states of water and how its abstract views come into play.  This week, I’d like to talk a little bit about experimenting with techniques.

Early on, most of my abstract captures were achieved through various adaptations of a zoom blur using various twisting techniques.  After lots of experimentation with this method of abstraction, I decided to start exploring a number of different approaches, which opened up some interesting looks and images.

Faerie Loops

Impressions of a Tree

Oaken Falls 2

Texture of Leaf and Light

The Maze

These images highlight some of my approaches.  Faerie Loops was inspired by the light playing across the long grass; I immediately envisioned luminous faeries leaping through the grass, as their terpsichorean tribe passed in front of us.  This gave me the idea of using a slight hop movement with my camera, providing the jumping effect.  Impressions of a Tree came about from closing my eyes to slits while looking at the light playing through the canopy; you can see the simple movement in the light traces.

Oaken Falls 2 was the result of the tree giving me the sense of a cascade of light playing through the leaves; a bit of experimentation led to this image with a waterfall of light in it.  Texture of Leaf and Light is more a study of what is felt through the mind’s eye rather than the physical eyes; I wanted to capture the feeling of the leaves and their interaction with the light rather than their physical shape and being.  A slight bit of playing with the focus and its exact depth worked well in this case.

Lastly, the Maze was all about creating the sense of being surrounded by grasses.  To get the desired effect, I got down rather low to the ground (the grasses were about 30 cm tall) and experimented with a slight bit of rotation of my camera, rather than zoom blur.  Shooting upward toward the sky gives the feeling of entrapment among the tall grasses.

I hope you enjoyed this bit of exploration of different techniques and the results that they can provide.  Remember to have fun with your photography and keep experimenting!