Falling Into Winter 2022
Here are a selection of my favorite photos taken in late-September, October and November 2022, in Edmonton:
And some abstracted photos from mid-October:
Into November, with a rather sharp transition to winter:
Bending Space and Light to See the Unimaginable
I was doing some experimentation with transforming an image. In this case, I found a simple photo of light shining through some blinds onto my kitchen floor to be interesting – but not that interesting. However I thought that there might be something there, so I played around with the image on my phone, primarily manipulating it in various ways using the Tiny Planet app. I came up with a variety of compositions that I think are quite intriguing.
And visual variations after different digital manipulations:
I like the way these camera apps can let me see differently, to envision compositions that I couldn’t have imagined and which could be quite successful as references or inspiration for paintings.
The Best of My Summer 2022 Photos
Here are some of my favorite photos (in a variety of styles) taken in July, August and early-September of 2022, in the Edmonton’s: river valley:
Flowers of summer:
Here are some favorite black and white or monochrome photos:
In early August I captured some interesting geometric abstracts mostly from at MacEwan University:
and in an abstract vein, using Intentional Camera Movement:
And a few more nature-y images from late summer:
Finally a monochrome photo of Dawson Bridge, with a late-summer evening haze:
Landscape/Nature Photo Art – Spring/Early-Summer 2022
Here are a collection of photos captured from late April into the middle June, 2022, mostly from the river valley at Edmonton, Canada.
The following set of photos are of flowers in bloom at the St. Albert Botanic Park (2022 June 20)
Winter’s Arrival (A Photo Gallery)
Here is my latest collection of photos, featuring the more abstract qualities of subtle textures and forms, of snow and ice in the landscape.
These images come from Edmonton’s river valley in the third week of November (2021), just after our first snowfall of the season.
Fall Photo Abstraction (Part 4)
Here is another set of interesting photos abstractions from my stroll along the colorful paths in Edmonton’s river valley.
Fall Photo Abstractions (Part 2)
In Part 1 I shared a collection of images in which the photos were still recognizable as landscapes, paths, trees, etc. In this collection, the abstractions are pushed so that the interest is just in the color, forms and composition.
Fall Photo Abstractions (Part 1)
With the colors of autumn becoming brighter and more abundant I have undertaken a project to create some new photo abstractions from the landscape. All of these images start with long exposure photos with deliberate camera motions of different types during the exposure. I then digitally post-process the images to enhance exposure, contrast and color saturation.
This first collection features abstracted images of landscapes. A follow-up post will feature photo abstractions, that while derived from the same landscapes, will not have readily discernible landscape elements.
(All images: Copyright Randall Talbot 2021)
2018 – Abstract Selections
Here are my favorite abstract photos from each month of 2018. I have employed a number of techniques in these selections, from found patterns in “nature”, to digital manipulation to camera (or object ) motion:
January:
February:
March:
April:
May:
June:
July:
August:
September:
October:
November:
December:
Looking back on 2018, I didn’t do as much abstract photography as I thought I did. At least I didn’t capture as many images during 2018. I did finish up a number of abstract photos that I had taken years ago, and they are among my favorite images. However those images are not included in this 2018 collection, so please look back to my earlier “abstract photography”- tagged blog posts to see them.
Self-Collaboration Projects
I often check my photos archives to see what I was doing and what images I captured on the current date but years ago. Today I went back to 2011 (December 30th) and found some interesting raw photos that with a bit of tweaking became much better.
It is fun to think that I am collaborating with my past-self to create these works. Here are some of the results from today:
Abstracting November 2011
I’m going back in my archives to 2011 (November 25) for these never-before-presented camera-motion abstract photos:
Spring Revisited (Part 2)
In Part 1, I shared 5 abstract photo images, taken in the Edmonton river valley on a beautiful spring day in May of 2013. Here area few more images conveying the color and lines of spring:
Maximum Green
Scratchy Lines
Horizontal Bands of Spring
Wet Golden
White Trunks Against Spring Green
Spring Revisited (Part 1)
In the depths of a dull November day I reached back in my photos archives for some memories of spring to brighten my mood.
I found some photos from May 20th of 2013 that captured the light, mood and color of spring. After tweaking these camera-motion abstract photos a bit, these are the images that I came up with:
Spring Colors (May 2013)
River Frolic
Into the Woods
Pack Play
Spring Greens
Watch for more abstract photo images from this day in Spring Revisited (Part 2).
Autumn Pastels (part 1)
I love the media of pastel – for the rich color and soft shapes that can be depicted. Autumn is a great time to be inspired by the natural landscape, to find images particularly suited to pastels:
Those people familiar with my work probably correctly guessed that the images above are not pastel works but rather are abstract photos that I took and created, with the intent of using them as reference images for future pastel paintings.
Abstract Autumn
Here are some of my recent (September 2018) abstract photographs:
These photos were created by using a shutter speed of around 1.5 seconds and moving the camera during the exposure. I then tweaked the digital images (contrast, color saturation, cropping etc.) using Lightroom.
I hope to use some of these images as inspiration for paintings.
Forms on a Frozen River
It is the end of January and the North Saskatchewan River in Edmonton is frozen over and covered with 15 centimeters of fresh snow. I venture to the river’s edge and am captivated by the abstract forms that I see:
Six Years Later
This morning, I was looking through my old photos, curious as to what I might have been looking at, taking photos of, on this day in past years. As it turns out I hadn’t been very active on January Thirteenths, but I did find some from 2012. In fact, I quite liked what IÂ was doing that year – it was a bit of a treasure chest of abstract images!
I took a number of those photos, tweaked and cropped them to come up with these final images (which I like and hope you will too):
Best of 2017 (Part 1)
I’ve looked back at my photos (those taken with my Nikon) from 2017 and picked out my top 20 favorites. The first ten are presented here and the second 10 will be in the “Best of 2017 Part 2” blog post.
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17.
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15.
14.
13.
12.
11.
My top 20 photos from 2017Â continued in Part 2.
Impressions of Autumn II
In my last post I shared five abstract photos emphasizing the colors of autumn. It turns out that I have more images from that photo shoot (in Edmonton’s river valley) that really appeal to me and I hope that you will like too:
Impressions of Autumn
It’s the end of September here in Edmonton and our autumn colors must be near their peak. It has been a while since I’ve dabbled in creating abstract photos but that’s what I did today and here are some of the results:
These photographs were all created using a longish (1.5 to 5 seconds) exposure with deliberate movement of the camera.
Return From Whenever
It seems like a longtime since I’ve added a post to this blog and since I did any camera-motion abstract photography. Well today (Sunday, September 11, 2016) I did take my camera out, put on a neutral density filter and cranked the shutter speed down to 2 seconds. The day was cool, wet and gloomy but I imagined to find some color and these interesting images:
Chicken Scratch
Broken Spiral
Rosy Glow
Darkness in Light
Cherry Blossom
Spring Reflections
Technically it is late-winter, not quite spring yet, but the melting has begun, puddles formed and reflections are making for some interesting images:
Chains
Puddle and Path
Storyland Sky
Late Winter – Black and White
Here is a little collection of black and white photos themed around the patterns and textures of late winter (late February at my home here in Edmonton).
“Last Year’s Plume”
“Irregular Patchwork”
“Up”
“Ice and the Far Edge”
“Temporary Condition”
A few more photos from this photo shoot may be seen on another of my blogs: YEGmonton.
Splash of January Color
Color can be hard to find for months during the long Edmonton winter.
However, with a bit of light and a long exposure photograph …
Randall Talbot - Artist 