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:
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:
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
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.
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):
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
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 …
Moving This Way and That
I have often used camera motion during a long exposure to create an abstract photo. I recently took some of these photos one evening in downtown Edmonton and discovered after the fact that I have used a good variety of camera motions for different effects.
Dance in the Distance
Cycles of Light
Towers of Dripping Light
Side Step
Scratchy
Completely Non-objective
Dare I say “completely”, “non-objective”? Non-representational? The images in this post did after all derive from photgraphs of real objects. Nonetheless, what is left are images, interesting just for their form and color – their source is even a mystery to me now.
Sixteen – 271
1- Sixty-two – 75
16 – Twenty-eight – 3
162 Eighty-seven
16-28-Four
Nature Softened
Here are some recent abstract photos of natural subjects. The edges have been softened and blurred by varying amounts of camera movement during an extended exposure (a couple of seconds).
Landscape H
Modulation
Tree 16290
Dream Front
Landscape V
Art in the Movement
Another five camera-motion abstracted images, from recent photos:
Pyramidal
Wedges
Confetti
Corner
Red Nest
Color Fields of Spring
Today I was back at taking some long-exposure, camera-motion abstract photos. This batch emphasizes color, sometimes subtle, sometimes bold.
Blue on Green
Peach Left
Golden Square
Pink Haze
Spectrum Centre
Photographic References for Abstract Painting?
It has become quite common (an pretty much acceptable) for artists to paint from photographic references rather than from a model in the studio or from a landscape “en plein air”. But do photographs have any value to an “abstract” painter? Well, for me they certainly do. One of my favorite forms of photography is abstractions, especially those that push to the edge of non-representational-ism. Through the use of camera-motion and long exposures, with a bit of post-processing to enhance colors and contrast (and some cropping), I regularly come of with images that I will use to inspire my paintings. Here are some recent examples (all are photographs) that I can’t help thinking would make dramatic largish paintings on canvases/boards/paper in acrylic, oil or pastel.
Surreal Manuscript
Light on Blue
Cubist Portrait
Base
Sweep
My painting are yet to come out of any of these images and I’m not sure how related the final work might appear in comparison to these references but some day I shall tackle them.
December Magic (part 2)
More magical long exposure photos from the dark days of December:
Blue Path Purple Sky
Path on the Edge
Lights into the Bend
Bus Shelter
Into the Winter Night
See December Magic (part 1) for more similar images.
December Magic (part 1)
The Kate Bush song “December Will be Magic Again” comes to my mind every year around this time. While the darkness in the northern hemisphere in December would seem to be a major deterent to photography it does open a door to a magical world.
I am torn between shooting at 1600 ISO and a wide aperture for low light handheld photography or giving in to the darkness and shooting at 100 ISO with an exposure of a couple of seconds, completely abandoning any attempt to stabilize the camera for a “clear” image. In fact when I go to such slow shutter speeds I will deliberately move the camera during the exposure to create magic!
Moon Dance
Sparkling Blue
Candy Cane Light
Green Post
Castle
February 17 Abstracts (Part 2)
In my previous post I shared 5 abstract photos from a 2014 February 17 photoshoot. Here are another 5 from that particularly creative and productive batch.
The Corner of My Eye
Blues Three
Brick and Blue Alley
Swimming in Blue
Urban Abstract 8636
As with most of my previous abstract photos, my basic technique is to use a long exposure (made possible by a neutral density filter) and then move the camera in a particular direction during the exposure. Post processing to emphasize color and contrast is usually also required.
Someday, I am looking forward to using some of these photographic images as inspiration, starting points for large paintings.
Randall Talbot - Artist 