Last week Peter wrote about our experience photographing graffiti art in downtown LA. It was a fascinating tour; I had no idea there were so many different, named, styles and approaches. I found isolating shapes and colors great source material to create abstracts.
As with chalk festivals, I find it easier to use source materials that are “in progress” or to focus on certain elements that appeal to me. For example, this fish was drawn on the side of the dumpster.
I liked the lines in the head of the fish, but not the color (or the dumpster). I first began by cropping the elements to include the parts that attracted me to the fish in the first place. Then I changed to color profile to be more vibrant and punchy.
I wanted a more graphic image, so I ran it through the FilterForge plug-in and chose a a pattern in their Distortion category.
This abstract plays with shape and color in a different way than the literal interpretation of the fish.
Some additional abstracts
pamphotography 