Hummingbird Abstract

[Steve S]

What do you think???

[rick55]

Very abstract - maybe a little too abstract How about 1/30 or something? Was this an error, or were you experimenting?

Cheers,
Rick

[Steve S]

I was shooting at real low shutter speeds trying to nail one, and i got a couple shots like this. They did a little dance in one spot and this was the result. Thought i would edit one and key on the colors and shapes.

[Loose Canon]

What I think?

You have too much sugar in your feeders, Steve, and it has fermented!

You are feeding your Hummers some serious Moonshine!

[Loose Canon]

On second thought, Steve?

I have done a little bit of research here and after exhaustive testing I have concluded the following:

It would seem that instead I have just a tad too much sugar in my own personal feeder and it is turning!

On the upside it has a very fine nose with just a hint of citrus finish!

Your Hummers rock!

[David]

Steve: Answer to original question is "not a lot"! However, you do raise a good issue regarding abstract images. Contrary to what many abstract paintings appear to show and contrary to what many people believe about abstract works, abstract art is not about random images or impressions. The artist normally has an "intent" in mind. Works by, say, Jackson Pollock, have a great deal of random content by virtue of the techniques he used to create them, but he had an intention in mind when he created the paintings, whether he knew it or not! The same is true in photography. If I point a camera at a flying bird, press the shutter release and get a blurred image, that would not be an abstract work, unless I had declared that the intention. Thus, if your intent was to capture the blurred image of the bird hovering then you could claim it as abstract, if not then it's just a blurred image. Now, suppose you say that it was your intent, so it is an abstract work. OK, as the artist you have that prerogative. However, that still does not imply the work has any merit!

Cheers

David

[arith]

I find it all very confusing; I regard photography as a craft rather than an art and those artists using photography are using a camera and photoshop rather like a brush and are as different in their approach as medical photography is to landscape.

You might follow a certain style of an artist or painting though, such as Caravaggio or try to recreate a scene like the 'Card Players' http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/cezanne/players/
but it is still a craft until you develop an identifiable style that can be attributed to you.

I prefer to leave the abstract stuff up to other people since I'm not confident I have the skill to convey the feeling intended and the most abstract I ever get is to use shadows and dof or some different PP, generally I do landscapes and think the places should be identifiable.

[CNelson]

I really like your hummer shots but this looks like what would happen if a hummer swallowed a firecracker.

Chuck

[rick55]

I don't know: photography certainly offers the opportunity to be very creative. I agree with David that intent has something to do with it, but chance can also contribute something that's interesting. To use his example, most blurred birds flying by are uninteresting, but if one is paralleling the line of a building or lake, there might be an interesting image there. We could argue about the term "abstract," but it could still be a worthwhile image.

Cheers,
Rick

[Steve S]

Interesting discussion here. I didn't take this image as an intentional abstract, and only called it an abstract because i didn't know what else to call it. I was however, intentionally shooting with slow shutter speeds on a fast moving bird and had several shots turn out like this . I simply thought it looked intersting ( shapes and colors) so i edited one just for fun.