Jeremy H. Greenberg
- Apr 4, 2019
- 2 min read

Blog #154 Abstract Photography

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📷 📷 Hobbyist

This year I finally joined the Cathay Camera Club, a local photography enthusiast club that hold monthly independently judged competitions. It’s a terrific group of artists, across various levels of experience from amateur, hobbyist, and professional photographers and everything in between. The monthly competitions are theme based and can be pretty challenging.

Bubbles [iPhone + 10x Magnification Lens

This month’s theme was abstract. Abstract images are difficult to define and harder still to make. The general consensus is that in order for a photograph to be abstract you should not be able to identify the subject or thing that is in the photograph. Of course this is debatable in itself.

When considering photographers who might have succeeded in this genre, Aaron Siskind comes to mind. I had the pleasure of viewing an exhibit of his in the Chicago Art Institute a few yers ago. His pealing paint images in black and white are quite beautiful and definitely abstract even though you do know what you are looking at. They are more like studies in line, shape, and tone than images “of” something.

Abstract Image [Fujifilm X-E3 + 18-55mm Zoom Lens, Some motion blur from a moving boat creating a painterly effect and heavily cropped.

After much deliberation, I submitted a couple of images that received perfect *10* scores from the judge of the evening, a doctor in art history. I was pretty happy with that. I”ll post those two below.

Try some abstract photography…see how it goes. You might enjoy the process and lear something along the way.

In conclusion,

“Black and white is abstract; color is not.

Looking at a black and white photograph, you are already looking at a strange world.”

-Joel Sternfeld

The light is always right.

JHG

*Images: © Limelight Limited

Where: Hong Kong

Subject: Abstract Images

Gear: Fujifilm X-E3 + Fujinon 18-55mm Zoom lens

Limelight Limited