July Assignment - Colour Abstract

 

The Union Flag

Introduction

This month's assignment aims to encourage you to experiment.   Having spent the past month taking precise close up images of flowers I thought we could do with a change and take some abstract images with the theme of "colour".  Hopefully this will give us an opportunity to experiment both in the use of our cameras and in post production manipulation of those images.

The topic itself might seem a little bit daunting at first but it is not too different from what we have just been doing; flowers have colour and often delicate shape/form.  It is quite easy to turn a close up flower image into a colourful abstract 

Closing in on a flower image.

by zooming in and boosting the vibrancy and saturation of the colours.

Or we can zoom in on other detail parts of our images and "play around" with the colour as in this rework of one of my 4W images:

One of the Ws viewed as an abstract

We can create colourful images in our home studios (otherwise known as the dining table) by photographing every day objects in novel ways.  In the following example, which we will try out at our next meeting, I have viewed a union flag left over from the jubilee party through a film of oil and water.

Oil and Water

The following images were created by putting a bowl of water on top of the flag, adding a bit of washing up liquid and cooking oil to create bubbles and focusing on the bubbles which took on the colour of the flag below them.

I then did a little bit of manipulation to crop into square format (which I think works best for abstracts) and to boost the colour saturation and vibrancy.

July Assignment

To take a single or series of abstract images on the theme of colour.  The dictionary defines "abstract" as"

art that does not attempt to represent external reality, but rather seeks to achieve its effect using shapes, colours, and textures.

The aim is to produce colourful abstract images.

Further Reading

Adobe defines abstract photography as:

Abstract photography consists of images created using photography materials and equipment that don’t have an immediate association with the physical world.  

They provide a useful article and video on abstract photography - click here to read it. 

Ideas

• Variations on oil and water 
• Acrylic/oil paints floating on water
• Reflections in the bubbles
• Objects in the water (pebbles/eggs)
• Close ups on food items, e.g.
• Slices of fruit/vegetables
• Close up of books/magazines
• Close up of building materials, stone, wood, bricks
• Look at everyday objects from a different perspective, different light

Update 17 Jun

As I was unable to demonstrate the oil and water set up yesterday I thought I would add more detail to this post.  The set up I used (for mobile devices) is illustrated here:

I set up it up on a step stool rather than on the table so it would be easier to look down on the setup to take images.

I placed my colour background, a union flag, on the still and covered it with a piece of glass from a photo frame in order to keep it flat.

You can use any glass container to hold the water but it works best if the sides are parallel and the opening wide (camera users will need to scale up the set up to match their larger sensor size.  The container should be as deep as you can make it so as to make it easier to focus on the water surface rather than the bottom of the glass which may include scratches or a manufacturer's mark that you do not want in your image.  

To create the image, add  a few drops of washing up liquid to the water and stir it in (gently, you do not want too many bubbles at this stage).  Then add small quantities (teaspoon at a time) of cooking oil to create the globules.  Use a stirrer to move them about and break them up to create a pleasing arrangement.

Then take your photo from above seeing the phone/camera parallel to the surface of the water.  Take care to ensure the surface of the water is in focus; experiment to find your cameras minimum focus distance.

Once you have taken your images, experiment editing them in your photos app; as it is an abstract you are constrained by any need to keep the image looking real!