“Seeing is the act of forgetting the name of what it is,.” John Suler, a photographer and psychology professor, once wrote:“If you look at a photo and there's a voice inside you that says 'What is it?'….Well, there you go. It's an abstract photograph.” Art for art sake.

In a recent photography workshop, the project was to capture abstract images. Here was a opportunity to experiment and expand my vision and lens.

Thanks to paintings by such 20th century artists such as Piet Mondrian, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko our way of seeing and interpreting the world has changed. “Accurate” depictions of a visual reality were no longer a priority. Of course, other art movements such as Impressionism and Cubism came before Abstract Expressionism. Visual arts, including photography, had shunned the task of representing the concrete, i.e. the “real” world. Instead, it could expand its repertoire by celebrating forms, geometric structures, and colors. Expressing a more personal interpretation of one’s environment, both without and within, became the priority. With my own lens now I would gravitate to what my eye might see but not necessarily pay attention to. I could be released from my persistent search for identification, interpretation and meaning. Exerimenting with new angles, details and structures while celebrating color or black and white has been liberating.

 
 

For years, as some of you may know with my work in landscaping I’ve been drawn to photographing nature. Below, are close-ups, call it Macrophotography. The indomitable structural beauty of nature continues to fascinate me such as in Fibonacci’s fascinating spirals.

Below are the textured, entwined roots of an old ficus tree here in town.

 
 

Vertical and diagonal lines as well as circular patterns make for a fundamental foundation in abstract art. Walking by a man with a loom I appreciated even more the threads.

trheads on a loom

Finally, I am forever grateful to capture a serendipitous moment such as the foam from an ocean wave on sand or fallen violet jacaranda petals on a car.