Abstract Photography

Posted by Glyn Wade

It was Thursday 13th March 2014 in Bentilee and in a room in the neighbourhood centre a roomful of photographers were pointing their cameras at their own faces. Yes, just another normal Thursday night at Willfield Camera Club!

Having apparently ‘volunteered’ to do a night on abstract photography I decided to get people to do some work in between videos, instructions, guidelines and history etc. I started off by getting people to take an abstract picture with the idea that they would take another one at the end and see how it differed from the first, once I had done my presentation.

The general feeling was that people had learnt something which was good to hear and that the pictures taken at the end were indeed taking into account things that I had covered during the night. Phew! All my efforts weren’t in vain!

The night covered the fact that rules are meant to be broken and break them we did. The exercise of pointing one’s camera at oneself with the intention of the resulting image being distorted garnered some interesting results. The rule of thirds was thrown out of the window and run over on the car park as the night became about textures, shapes and getting in close.

Some of the pictures taken during the night are below. There also some that were ‘inspired’ by the night which is nice too.

Remember, if you’re wondering what exactly IS abstract photography, well, it’s up to you!!