Contribution for The Sunday Challenge #458: Abstract Photography

Before uploading my contribution, I read what Ghislaine wrote on her contribution description. That made me to think (again) what is abstract. I had already taken and edited my shot, based on my own subconscious understanding on this genre. But I started to think why and how I had done so.

Just as Craig Hull says: "Abstract photography is difficult to define." However, my own definition is that the abstract art actually can be the same as how the word abstract is used in a very different meaning and context: "An abstract is a brief summary [..] of a particular subject ..."

So, at best, an abstract painting, photograph or any work of art, gives a summary. Or that can be one way to see it. For example here the subject is the busy city lights seen at night. I used long exposure to stretch the lights. I used MirrorLab Android app effects to add a sphere, which in a way symbolizes photography to me. World is seen through lenses and mirrors. Photography can capture reality pretty accurately, but it can also distort it. And finally I saturated the image, to emphasize the colors of modern urban landscape seen at night.

So, in my mind, abstract art emphasizes and summarizes the essential; what is seen by the artist. It can be colors, ambiance, shapes and/or all of them. It tells what the artist saw, and what the scene is about.