I wrote a previous post on finding abstracts in marinas and harbors. This time as my companions were photographing the majestic ocean scenes in front of us, I had my camera pointed down.
The shapes, lines, and patterns water makes on the sand is fascinating. I can walk on a beach for hours and not look up. If you have an opportunity to photograph on the beach, find an ugly spot that looks “dirty” and then try to isolate a dominant shape and create compositions with that shape in different areas. Sometimes I will look for a rock that breaks up the pattern and create the composition around that subject. I find high contrast monochrome images help emphasize shape and pattern, and de-emphasize the fact that I am photographing dirt patterns in the sand.
The image below is a documentation shot. This is what the scene looked like when I walked up. I then started to look for shapes and found the long lines toward the black band in the upper right of the image. This is where I started to work, along this band of sand.
I often see things in abstract shapes. Below I see the outline of a fish with feathers on the top? Outrageous I know, but sometimes its just fun to imagine.
pamphotography 