Weekly competition #89 - Abstract Competition

flat4 - Zebra crossing
Great start to the competition, Luka. In the thumb I wasn't quite sure what I was looking at. A book shelf was the first thing that came to mind. Then after opening it my first thought was "zebra crossing", followed by "come on stupid, that's not what a zebra crossing looks like".
This one did well in fooling me! And it then fooled me once more because I was sure I was looking at a black and white shot. But what's that red spot there on my screen? It's in the picture... Fooled again!
But it's not about fooling the viewer, it's a wonderful abstract shot that I could well imagine hanging on the wall as a huge print.

Tony-O door handle
Another wonderful abstract shot. Is that the same door we see in your avatar image? It leaves me slightly puzzled. The left side up to the door leaf looks as if I'm looking head on. The right side looks like the door is at an angle.
But it's not about figuring it out, it's about the visual impact. And this shot has lots of it. I like the bold colours, the shapes, the structure of the catch and the door. I feel it is let down a little by the orange background with that darker glow around the handle. I would
have tried to make it all flat, single colour, no structure.

GlynM - Vulptuous Abstract in Stainless Steel
Nice idea and well executed. Another almost black and white picture. I like it. It makes me wonder if you had the idea first and then took the shot(s) or if you had the shot(s) and then got the idea (and what were you looking at to get this idea in the first place?:shock
It certainly has visual impact and does leave a lasting impression. The title is a bit abstract as well, I would have thought that 'Voluptuous Abstract in Stainless Steel' would have been the better title

haydnw - Rubberwood box
Good shot, nice pattern plus the texture of the wood. The light is not terribly exciting and I feel that you should have cropped a bit different to exclude the upper right corner. I do like the perspective.

Coriander - stacked chairs
It would have taken me some time to figure out what it is. In the thumbnail it looks a bit like a tree fungus. In the end I would have gotten to it as this is a classic piece of furniture. Nice perspective
and pattern from the repeating rows of chairs. The light is a bit harsh, at least on the right side.

nathanever82 - ... geometric shapes; colours; lines; patterns; structures...
Ok, you did follow the brief. It's all in there, but I think as a photo it could be stronger (especially when I remember your entry from last week that I really loved). I think I like the bold colours best in this one. It doesn't make a lasting impression on me, though...

Father Ted - stairs
This certainly is an abstract picture. It cries out multi-storey car park to me (but it could well be another marvel of concrete architecture). I'm a bit puzzled by the perspective of this picture. The
lights on the left are not beneath each other, the top and bottom corners are also not aligned.
The crop could be improved, I think. I tried a square(ish) crop, top of the top right bit of concrete, bottom of the bottom left bit of concrete. I did like that better. Either that or adding a bit at the
bottom of the pic to make it symmetrical.

JeanClaudePhilippe - Old tyre
Although you can see in the thumbnail already that this is a pattern in a tyre, I imagined looking into a series of canyons, a bit like a satellite image. It's nice that the 'canyons' on the left have
different coloured stuff in it. I also like the structure of the worn out tread. While the middle is tack sharp, the left and right edges look a bit fuzzy.

Bob and his Pentax - Ripples
One of my favourite subjects, water. And what a nice shot it is, very Zen. I could imagine this hanging on the wall as a huge print. I would have liked it even better when taken a few seconds later, i.e. the imapct effect having calmed down a bit more.

gartmore - abstract
More concrete! In the thumb an association of a swords blade flashed up for a second. The first true black and white shot of the competition. And while I don't get as excited as with your last entry I do like it. It looks like you did take attention to composition when framing and/or cropping (though you missed a smidgeon of white on the upper and lower left corner). I like it even more rotated by 180 degrees, then the middle concrete pillar becomes Excalibur. (No, I haven't drunk anything...)

bforbes - Perpetual Helix
Another interesting entry, an image you can look at for a long time, following the helix with your eyes round and round. The red and yellow reflections really shine against the blue background, nice contrast.
I cannot help the feeling, though, that it is better watched moving...

GaryJohn - The Wall
Welcome to the forum, Gary! Nice structures in the wood and stone. The middle beam, though, does look a bit out of place with it's shadow. It is irritating me and perhaps that was your intention, to irritate
the viewer with this...

Dr. Mhuni - Abstract
A nice structure and texture, something formed by mother nature, it seems. I cannot decide whether it is more wood or more stone. And it doesn't matter. You did well in the lighting department, nice accent set
by the light and it gives a feeling of warmth. It's balanced well with the ambient light. Quite a mysterious picture it is.

josh - Alien
This is the first entry taking what I would class as a non-abstract shot and converting it into an abstract by post processing. It almost works for me! It's a strange looking creature and the stare is quite irritating. But that is also where the abstract qualities of the picture fail to take over, the subject is far to interesting as a subject.

Galoot - Brass
Nice box of fittings that you have there, is it pneumatics or hydraulics? And there is the problem of this image already, I'm more interested in the subject(s) again. I do like it as a picture but it's not shouting abstract at me. I think you missed a chance there. You could have taken a score of each type out and arranged them regularly on a neutral background. Then take your fisheye and take a shot straight down at them. I bet that I would have liked that better...

davidtrout - Red white and blue
Wow, what an image. I was instantly reminded of Peter Bargh's PPG image 'Bullring' which is a bit more abstract that yours. As an image, however, I think this one is even stronger. The composition is great
and the lady wearing red is the dot on the i. This is a fantastic shot, love it.

Hyram - back to basics
This is a great shot with a bold frame (I would have preferred the frame in white but that surely is debatable). Wonderful structure in the stones and I like that rectangle of wood/paint structure in the
lower right. I think that you got a great abstract shot here.

beakynet - The moment of lift off
This is a type of shot that I thought I wouldn't like. As with Martin's (later retracted) shot I find that it does work for me here. (So maybe my assumption of not liking that type of shot was wrong, and the only
thing I don't like are badly made shots of this type...)
Although one can still identify what the subject is, the shapes and colours are taking over the picture. It does look like a dream of gulls rather than an image of them.

Aiki - suncatcher
For me this one does bear some similarity to Galoot's entry, but here I cannot decipher what I am looking at (though the title gives a hint) and I can concentrate on the abstract qualities of the image. It has an irregular structure and I like the limit of the DOF. I find it a tad too dark, though. A quick try with fill light in Picasa brought out a better image in my opinion.

johnriley - Kaleidoscope
Yes, kaleidoscopes are fun and this image makes me smile. It's a decent shot of berries to start with, but by mirroring and multiplying that image new structures appear and take over the visual impression. For me
this image succeeds in transforming the objective shot of the berries into an abstract one.

RR - Pick a drop
I had a go at that technique myself after reading the thread by scotjames here. It's not as easy as it seems at first (what ever is?).
You did well to play with this technique and got a nice abstract shot out of it. I think you should have arranged the drops a bit more carefully as to not cut trough them at the edges, though that is a minor
niggle. What I dislike, though, is seeing your camera strap and camera reflected off the upper right drop and the strap on the drop in the lower right corner.
Overall it is visually pleasing and foreground and background are playing well together. The colours could have been a bit bolder but you saved your bacon by the nice contrast with the whites.

Belinda B. - Glass Abstract
It's a shame that this decanter was empty (hope you got a refill meanwhile) as I would have preferred to see some warm colours here. The structure of the ground glass is nice but the colours of whatever is in
the background should have had a bit more pop.

DoctorJeff - Magic Egg
Some bold colours used here certainly. Intriguing picture with high visual impact. Good use of light (as far as I can imagine the geometry right). Although I like the background (at least above the bright line
at the bottom) I think it would have been better to concentrate on the 'egg' a bit more. As it is there is too much background. Also you clipped all channels (red and blue on both ends) and there is some noise
especially on the left and right background. I guess that this is a consequence of cranking up the contrast (or using extreme curves).

Despite of what I said in the comments (see competitions forum) it wasn't an easy choice. Yes, there is no wrong and no right in my choice but there are great entries competing for my vote and I like them for
different reasons.

However, a decision has to be made and here it is:
1. flat4 - Zebra crossing
2. Tony-O - Door handle
3. GlynM - Vulptuous Abstract in Stainless Steel

Honorary mentions go to Hyram, gartmore and Bob and his Pentax.

GlynM and johnriley get a creativity award from me this week.

In an open competition davidtrout would have won, marvellous image. For me it wasn't abstract enough, though.

May I also lead your attention to the fortnightly competition #12
.
Read the rules here.
Participants welcome!

So this is my judging done with, flat4, it's over to you!

Prieni

P.S.: It is by pure coincidence that the first three places are in order of submission. I didn't look for the easy way out

Prieni - I would like to say thank you for my third place and add my congratulations to all of the entries for such a wonderful selection of pictures.

I would also like to say how inspiring I found this subject. I come from an engineering background and the creative aspects of photography usually go way over my head.

For this subject I did start off looking for things that would give some repetitive patterns. However my first attempts looked more like entries for the "Everyday Object from a weird,unusual,puzzling perspective" competition.

So I did a little research to find out what is expected from an abstract and decided that it needed to inspire some thought in the viewer. I also decided that I wanted to use some sort of distortion on a basic linear pattern, possibly to create a tunnel effect. This is when I took some shots of the inside of the washing machine. However looking at examples on the internet I was inspired by this Abstract. While I knew that I did not have the skills to perform the alignment and stitching used in this shot I did like the dome effect in the middle. I therefore started to explore the, up to now never used, distortion effects in Photoshop Elements. I used the spherical distortion to create one dome and after that it was just a natural progression

I also produced a more random possible entry, Glass Corpuscles and had a lot of difficulty deciding which one to submit.

Thanks again for such an inspiring subject.

Glyn

Thank you for your rapid results and considered comments Ralf. You certainly had some good pictures from which to select your winner. TonyO and Beakynet were top among my favourites here. Thanks for your kind comments on my picture, much appreciated.
And congratulations to Flat4 for an intriguing winner.

Another marathin effort from our splendid judge! And another splendid winner!

Onwards, onwards to the next challenge.......

Thanks for the comments Prieni!

I had trouble with the crop.I couldn't get the whole staircase in due to traffic I don't know what it is with the lights. It could be that's how the council had fitted them. or could it be a converging vertical thing? Not sure

Still, onwards and upwards! Ready for the next challenge!

Oh, nearly forgot.
Congratulations to Flat4

Well done to Flat4, and to Prieni for usual thorough judging.Thanks very much for second place,i'm very pleased with that. I think your right with regard to the orange glow.It would be better without.
Congrats to GlynM, one of my faves along with Beakynet.Was a fun compo.
Tony.

Many thanks for the considered judging Ralph, and congrats to the winners. My personal fave was Gartmore's, a simple, but striking composition.

Congratulations to flat4 and many thanks to Prieni for the judging and my honorary mention.

No one mentions my herculean effort in putting the individual critiques as a comment to each entry as well.
I think it is a much nicer way of flicking through all the entries and see what the judge thought of them, i.e. having the image together with the comment.

I thought I could set a precedent here...

Prieni

Congratulations to this weeks winner. Abstract Optima Forma, I should say.
Well done,Flat4!!
Congrats also to Ralf, for excellent job done. Although a deserved winner, your choice was a surprise for me.
Thanks also for pointing a bit of attention to the " Other " competition.
You are far to kind

Sorry, I am also guilty as charged. I do think it is a good thing.
If.......there is a next time for me, I will try to think about it.

Martin.

Thank you Prieni for your herculean efforts and congratulations to flat4.

I agree that my decanter shot would have been better with whisky in it.

I took it out into the garden to photograph it

YES, what an easy read it was! Nicely done.

Congrats to the winner.

Prieni, sorry for the delay. I've been up to neck in studying these days. Thanks for the comments, I really feel honoured. It surely was a tough one. Lots of magnificant photos.

Regards, Luka

P.S. Prieni you really put a lot of effort in commenting and judging. Nicely done.