For me, abstract photography is like a free-wheeling jazz solo: it riffs and improvises, taking your brain to places it can’t get to by means of rational thought. That’s why I love it, and perhaps that’s why my eye has been drawn to abstract imagery since I first picked up a camera.
About a week ago, I had a joyful time shooting the series of abstract photos shown here. To capture these images, I mixed liquids of different viscosities, added a few drops of food coloring, swirled the mixture around in a glass that was lit from below, and photographed the ever-changing concoction through a macro lens.
What's the secret to effective abstract art? What's behind its power to move us? I asked two of my good friends from the fine arts world to share their thoughts with us.
The first friend is Barbara Bullock-Wilson, an author and daughter of the legendary photographer Wynn Bullock, who in the mid-20th century created some of the most pioneering abstract photographs the world has ever seen. My wife and I were fortunate to meet Barbara when we were living in California, and we've maintained a warm friendship with her for the past decade.
Here’s what Barbara and her father wrote about the power of abstractions: “What you see is real – but only on the particular level to which you’ve developed your sense of seeing. You can expand your reality by developing new ways of perceiving. Abstraction can help us cut through the obscurity which familiarity can breed and achieve new levels of perception and understanding.”
The second friend is Andy Ilachinski. Andy is a brilliant theoretical physicist who has one of the sharpest minds I've ever encountered. He’s also an award-winning, published photographer who creates truly dazzling abstracts – and he has a wonderful blog called Tao of Photography that you absolutely, positively should check out.
Here's what Andy says about abstractions: "Abstraction is a deliberate stripping away of everything in an image that is extraneous to the graphical elements alone. The deeper the sense of mystery that the arrangement of these graphical elements infuses into the final image − gently compelling viewers to ‘solve’ the latent riddle, ‘What am I?’ − the more successful the ‘abstract photograph’ is likely to be."
Insightful words from two gifted artists and thinkers. But in the final analysis, I believe using words to describe abstract art may be like trying to catch the wind with a butterfly net: the essence of it slips through, no matter how hard we try to capture it. When it comes to abstracts, perhaps the best we can do is sit back, turn off our minds, drop the needle and let the jazz solo play.
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