GIZMODO TEAM
Tip Your Editors: tips@gizmodo.com Editorial Director: Brian Lam | Email Editor: Jason Chen Email | AIM | Twitter Feature Editor: Joe Brown Email | Twitter Senior Contributing Editor: Jesus Diaz Email | AIM | Twitter Reporters: Matt Buchanan Email | AIM | Twitter Brian Barrett Email | Twitter Contributing Editors: Adam Frucci Email | Twitter Kat Hannaford Email | Twitter Contributing Editor, Weekends: Jack Loftus Email Junior Reporters: Rosa Golijan Email | Twitter Kyle VanHemert Email | Twitter Editor-at-Large: Joel Johnson Email | Twitter Contributors: John Herrman Email | Twitter Mark Wilson Email | AIM | Twitter Bryan Gardiner Email Contributing Researcher: Don Nguyen Email Contributing Artist: Nikki Cook Interns: Casey Chan Email Ryan Salerno Email Jeremiah Dobruck Email Christina Bonnington Email Heroes and Friends Comment Account Questions: Community Guidelines Comments@gizmodo.com Popular Posts: Last 24 Hours Last 7 Days Last 30 Days Media Requests: media@gizmodo.com Follow Gizmodo on: Twitter Facebook
Make the most of your iPhone with Lifehacker's list of the best iPhone apps. SUBSCRIBE TO GIZMODO 
Shooting Challenge Abstract Gallery 1
This is actually the inside of a plastic watering jug held up to the sun. The recycling logo is on the bottom of the jug and the design, similar to an upside-down Atari logo, is imprinted onto the side. I went for a two-hour walk looking for absract shots and it turned out the strangest picture was taken in my backyard; and of an object I see every day. -Aaron Ackerman
After a long day at work and pondering this challenge I took a shower. When I looked down, I found the perfect subject. My boyfriend's loofah, which I had never noticed before, suddenly took on a far more interesting shape as it dangled from the faucet. I stuck it in front of an LED light I got from IKEA and this picture was born. -Adam King
It's cropped a bit since I was shooting from the park below the building, and the 100mm is the longest lens I've got (160mm equivalent on my 1.6x-crop-factor Rebel XSi).
Canon Rebel XSi EF 100mm f/2.0 USM ISO 100, f/8.0, 1/200 sec. -Alex Noriega
The subject (only slightly difficult to deduce) is the light emitted from my 30 year old ONKYO tuner and a 25 year old Technics turn table. Ever since I dug these gems out of my parent's basement, I have loved listening to vinyl records. Once you get over the inevitable snap, crackle and pop, the sound is so rich and textural. So as I was browsing Gizmodo and listening to some Zeppelin, I thought hm, there must be a way to capture such a richly artistic experience through abstract photography.
I knew I needed to show the energy and the emotion associated with the experience.. but how? Aha! A long exposure in a low lit environment would give me the opportunity to move the camera in a deliberate pattern, in order to illustrate the situation in an abstract way. In my image, I manipulated the light to represent the waves, the radiating energy and the deep textural composition of the music. -Alex
This weekend was the Louisiana Balloon Competition in Baton Rouge. This is a shot of one of the balloons as it was being inflated. The regular pattern of lines and spaces just appealed to me. -Allen Childress
I saw my mother's vinyl record collection and the thin lines caught my attention.
-Ariel Cima
The photo is a shot of the noontime sun... out of focus, the red seen is from an Infra-red filter (700nm) -Ben Hay
Shooting Info: Sony A550, Sigma 50mm Macro Lens, ISO 200, External flash from the back left to catch the smoke and not hte background. -Ben Torode
I took this shot on my bed when I was bored. I had a stack of dvd's on a spindle so I experimented with the stack and the flash. Then I decided to cover the flash with a red shirt to make a cool red effect in the picture. -Chintan Mistry
I was in a club while over in Korea that had amazing lighting effects - this was the "beast" that made it possible. -Chris Vasta
After shooting lots of blurry photos of color a la punch drunk love.. I decided to go with more of a warped portal or ocean of color here.. I suppose there's a balance between having a picture abstract to the point of meaninglessness, and a point where there is just enough detail to derive a feeling/concept or story. -Darren Pearson
The repeating red/blue/green pattern should make this easy to recognize even though what's actually being seen may not be so intuitive. A closer inspection on a "micro" scale quickly turns a white arrow on a white background into an explosion of color. In fact, you could call this "reality" and our usual interpretation of white on white the "abstraction". -David Rubin
Even though living in a small town, which makes it difficult sometimes to meet your challenges, I set off looking for buildings or objects that might present a possibility of having some aspects that might lend themselves to being abstract if photographed correctly.
I wandered for a couple of hours around town, including a god forsaken abandoned mosquito infested railroad track, hoping for something that if shot the right way would look abstract. I took dozens of photos but I could tell none of them where really what I wanted. I was discouraged and hot plus a little itchy from all the bites that occurred at the railroad track so I decided to go in my little 15 foot above ground pool for a swim and cool off.
I felt somewhat better after that and while just gazing into the pool I noticed how random and colorful the blue rock pattern looked bouncing around in the sunlight as the pump pushed the water around in random patterns. So taking my inspiration from what was right in my face I started to take shots of the bottom of the pool through the swirling water.
I had a couple of people try and guess what they were looking at and one thought it was some type of screen-saver and another thought it was abalone so it definitely is not so easy to guess what this is. -Dennis Cuttera
I'm on a student exchange in Finland and my host family's house has a lot of weird angles in it so I tried to find some that looked abstract. I'm not very good at abstract photography, I was outside for like 10 hours trying to take abstract photographs but I couldn't get any good shots.
-Dustin Chan
I was touring Boston University, taking a ride on the elevator when I noticed the modernistic ceiling lights, so I took out my camera and took a shot. -Eilish Lancey
I made this picture on the 6th of august in Amsterdam, I had to wait for the bridge to close, in my head was the idea to participate to this weeks shooting challenge. I saw this structure and I thought, that's abstract... So what you see on this picture is the bottom of a bridge in Amsterdam. -Felix Wagner
Taken downtown Montreal (QC) on 05/08/2010 : 8:40AM.
Just walking myself to work and I noticed that fully patched, rusted, grinded and graphed mailbox. I'm a lot into urban art these days and this is an example of constructed, yet unplanned, art setup! Well, I know, it's abstract so a bit difficult to connect with, but the mix of different mediums (paint, metal, paper, scotch tape) is appealing, not to mention the bright colors around that straight line holding up against elements. -Frederic Beaulieu
Had a hard time with this challenge. Wanted to resist the urge of close up/telephoto shots, unfortunately I succumbed as the deadline approached. Pictures are some candles/candle holders on my Mother-in-Law's mantle. Looked interesting to me. Fired off a dozen or so shots. As always, went with the first shot. Enjoy! -Gabe Camposagrado
Just bought my first DSLR so shooting like crazy at the moment, anything and everything is a potential picture and a chance to learn something new. Decided to try and shoot the sun streaming in through the window of my front door but thought it wasn't quite abstract enough so went in for some close-up shots instead. This was the final shot I ended up with, a quick colour tint in Lightroom to give it a bit more punch and job done! -Jim Dix
Despite the loose and mindless nature of this photo's initial composition, I've been able to push the image via Photoshop into this final iteration. I suppose there might have been some notion in the back of my head that the winding ramp behind the phi delta theta house would provide a complex and deep composition of lines, surfaces, and masses. In the back of my head is exactly where that notion could only have been, because of the sweltering heat and my task at hand; I was photographing and measuring the accessibility ramp behind the frat house for a campus map in 100˚+ heat. -Jody Verser
Shot in a Park in Downtown Charlotte.
-John Barton
I've been wanting to join in the Gizmodo Weekly Photo Challenge for a couple of weeks, but between my workload increasing and my weekends filling up with way too many social events (3 year olds have too many Birthdays), I haven't nailed a shot I was happy with by the deadline.
I was reading the site and realizing that with an upcoming weekend camping trip in Utah, I probably needed to shoot something soon. My wife finished watching Top Chef and asked me what I wanted to watch and since I was putzing on the computer I said I didn't care. She ended up flipping to Morgan Freeman's "The Wormmhole" on the science channel and I looked up from my laptop to see the decanter of some unknown blue alchohol that's been decorating my bar for year without either myself or my friends draining and inspiration hit. -John Petrick
Canon EOS 5D ISO 200 28-75 f/2.8 Lens @ 75mm Exposure was f/5.6 @ 0.6 sec Tripod mounted. -Joseph Baltazar
Camera: Nikon D90 Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/800) Aperture: f/1.8 Focal Length: 50 mm ISO Speed: 200
An extreme close up of a section of an an untitled iron sculpture at the North Charleston Riverfront Park in South Carolina. I focused on composing the shapes, shadow and color into a balanced image and tried to add a small element of depth into an otherwise very 2D image. The feeling I was going for was warmth, and as the setting sunlight made the already warm colors of red and yellow even warmer. I used a polarizing filter so I could use an aperture of f/1.8 at 1/800 of a second and to also cut out some of the glare of the sun. -Joseph Nienstedt
Camera: iPhone, 3Gs
Although I have a Canon digital SLR, I'm a pretty completely untrained photographer, and prefer using my iPhone. I like to take pictures that have an element of serendipity and randomness in them —probably because I'm really not good enough to control all the variables, or handle all the settings on my SLR— so I make a virtue of my shortcomings and embrace the limitations and oddities of the iPhone. It's been a great training ground (although I'm probably learning all kinds of terrible habits), and in January I started a one-photo-a-day photo blog to force me to be consistent, quick, spontaneous, and to always keep my eyes open. I'm submitting this photo today — and will submit more in the future— as another tool to force myself to learn some actual skills.
Lens; I guess you could call this "manual telephoto"
Although, I'm using my 3GS and have downloaded the iPhone 4 software, I forwent (forgo-ed? I've never seriously used the past tense of that word before) the telephoto option. I find it only makes the photos grainy. Some of my best close up iPhone photos (my "snail on a sidewalk" is actually pretty awesome) have been taken with me sitting, laying, crouching, peering, scooching, or otherwise getting close enough to my subject to get the image I want. This one was taken with me crouching in the middle of an agave patch, trying hard not to get my —let's just say "bottom parts"— seriously punctured (the needles on these guys are as sharp as really sharp and unbelievably fat hypodermics).
Treatment: To bring up the natural color of the agave —since today is a super-bright Southern California day that tends to wash the color out of everything— I did run this through the Camera Bag app (iPad version) "Color Cross" filter. -Kat Likkel
Every now and then a photo just happens on accident... I was sitting at my desk at work, fiddling with my camera and pointed it down into my cup of ice water. -Kelcey Cahill
This is a closeup shot of a 12k lumen projector blasting out images onto a wall. My friend Meghan who runs Pomo Project was doing some video tests, and I showed up to shoot some video. This was one of the few stills that I shot that night. The image has been rotated 90 degrees so it kinda look like a water droplet dropping into a pool of bokeh. -Kert Gartner
My family and I took a trip to the Georgia Aquarium in honor of Shark Week. Out of six rolls of film, this was the only picture that I didn't understand. It took me a good five minutes of just staring at it to figure out that the black blob was a actually a shark swimming over my head. This picture helped me remember why I love shooting film; I love not knowing what you're going to get until you take the prints home and review them. -Lauren Winnicki
This shot can be seen as hole of light, or a logo of spider man, may be the connection of the line will create the an explosion of light etc... Infact, this one is a parking in France. -Ha Duy Long
I was sitting in my cube at work, think of interesting places to take my Canon XSi to find some nice shots for the challenge when I noticed the lines and space of the cubicle walls and overhead cabinets. What better inspiration than spacing out on the space behind my computer monitor? Because I was at work and the lighting was interesting, I immediately snapped the shot with my iPhone 4. -Lori Drozd
For starters this is my first ever non point and shoot camara so i wanted to do the weekly challenge since i finally have one. I had no idea of the concept of abstract. After an entire (work) day of trying settings i just set the shutter speed to the slowest one i had and moved it, a lot, and took the manual focus in and out constantly. thats about as abstract as i can give you. -Marcelo Lopez
I used a Canon Digital Rebel XT with an 18-200mm lens at 400 ISO, 5.6 f-stop, 1/640 exposure and a focal length of 78.
The story behind this photo is just my process of getting inspiration. I simply walk around the same streets I've always walked down. I manage to take new photos each time I walk down the same roads. This particular photo was taken on a street directly behind the Art Institute of Charleston. What many would see as just an ordinary paint splatter I saw as something different. I see an almost human form. There is some order out of chaos and random chance. I encourage photographers to really look at your surroundings. If you feel uninspired or feel that there is nothing good to take photos of, take a good look around you. Make something out of seemingly nothing.
-Matt LeGault
The subject of this shot is the exhaust pipe on my car. I inverted the vertical tube on the tripod to hang the camera down below and lined it up directly with the exhaust outlet. I cleaned the tip quickly and wet it so that it would reflect light better. I used the flashlight (ridiculously bright) to illuminate the ground between the camera and the car so that the diffuse bounce wouldn't illuminate the car much, but the wet exhaust tip would reflect around the outer ring. I played with the exposure in manual mode to capture just the ring. -Ryan Powers
Canon T2i, 50mm, f/1.8 iso 100. Was going to use the Hasselblad 500cm, but thought developing might take too long. -Sam Marusich
My dad recently introduced me to this site and the shooting challenges. I have been trying to take at last one picture daily to capture and better appreciate my everyday life, so I thought these challenges would be an excellent opportunity to add an extra bit of excitement and experimentation to my own project. I was hesitant to submit to this particular challenge, however, as the theme "Abstract" somewhat puzzled me. But, what better time to start something than the present, right?! So, after breakfast, I choose my cereal boxes as my subject and began playing with different lighting techniques. What I have submitted is the result of a morning of happy playing and experimenting with my camera. How fun! -Shay Laws
The Marina Bay Sands had just opened in Singapore recently and there was a lot of hype about it. So I decided to make a little trip there.
First mistake ... never attempt to walk there from the train station, even if its only 10 mins, in high heels. When I was walking through the lobby of the hotel (I think it's the first of the 3 towers), looking up I feel that I couldn't see the top of the levels of rooms. Huge yes ... massive yes. While balancing with aching feet on my 3 inch heels, I gambled a shot, while sooo many tourists were jostling past me to check into our current famous landmark. -Tyrene Teo
Send an email to Adam Harris, the author of this post, at aharris@gizmodo.com.
Aug 10, 2010 08:19 PM 
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
No comments:
Post a Comment