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Shooting Challenge Abstraction Gallery 2

I took this shot with my HTC Hero. My camera is currently being repaired by geek squad, so this is all I could use. I worked quite a few extra shifts this week, so it left me little time to think about the contest. Thus, a picture of the office light! I think it actually came out nice. I used the Vignette app to shoot and modify the picture, then pixlr.com to resize it. -Adam Bean

Camera: Canon Rebel XSi, Lens: 75-300mm @ 75mm, f/4.0, ISO 100, 2.5 Seconds. For this shot I setup under the sculpture "Catalyst" at Minnetrista in Muncie, IN. -Adam Mosier

Sony A200 Quantaray 18-200mm lens Original shot: 100mm ISO 100, 1/1250s, f/5.6 Ensuing shots: 45mm ISO 400, 1/60s, f/5.6 Screen: 12" IPS on my Thinkpad x200t

I was walking around NYC near my apartment, and took a few shots of Hearst Tower, but I didn't really think any of them were "abstract" enough for the contest. I'm not sure if the final result is "abstract" or "avant garde" but I think it's cool. I took my original shot of the side of the Hearst Tower, and displayed it on my laptop's screen, where I took a photo of that. I then displayed that image on the screen, and took a shot of that. I did this a total of 12 times. So the lens aberrations added up to make the image appear pinched, and the inaccuracies in the color of the monitor and the camera sensor also added up to make the image darker, bluer, blown out and with extreme contrast. I used photoshop just to crop the image down to size. -Adam Wrigley

We went to the park on Sunday afternoon to find some abstract photograph material. I think we both had pre-conceptions about what we were looking for so we were a little dejected by the abundance of nature but lack of geometric patterns (not sure what we were thinking - it's a park!). After a while though, our eyes started seeing all the intricate details that were ripe for photographing. I'm not sure we found a contest winning shot but we certainly learnt alot about opening our eyes when looking for a shot.

The shot is a close up of some tree bark taken with a Nikon D3000 with the 18-55mm kit lens, F5.6, ISO 200, Speed = 1/125. -Alastair Hughes

Shot with a Canon 7D on manual focus, 150mm on a Canon EOS EF75-300mm telephoto lens (left over from my film camera days!). 1/10", 5.6 at ISO125.

I went out to shoot specifically for this shooting challenge and brought my telephoto lens knowing that it is often easier to find abstraction in close-up. Ironically, this shot was more of a wide-angle (mid-range of the lens). It was my last shot of the day, the apartment balconies across the street from where I live here in Copenhagen, Denmark. I de-focused the shot to add a level of abstraction but also to maintain my neighbors privacy :-) -Andrew Zirm

This is a shot of cotton buds I took using a Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ7 in intelligent-auto mode with no alteration afterwards. -Arnida Safuwan

Attack of the Chrome Cyclops from Space Shot hand-held with a Canon Rebel T1i at 55mm, f/5.7.

I spend Saturday mornings at a local doughnut shop with a bunch of crotchety old car buffs who love to reminisce about the days when Eisenhower was in charge, the Soviets were the enemy, and the good ol' USA was a better place. The tail of this 1957 Ford Thunderbird was probably meant to evoke ideas of rockets, but it makes me think of the monsters in all those over-the-top cold-war era sci-fi films. -B. Drew Collier

This picture was taken with a Nikon D3000. 55mm, F/5.6, ISO 1/125th After failing to find something abstract in the house, I ventured outside to find something creative and unique. I noticed a fire hydrant and decided to take some pictures of. My favorite picture was the one looking down upon it, as seen here. It looks very abstract and artistic, and offers plenty of room for imagination. The rusted nut in the center contrasts the rest of the yellow fire hydrant, giving the picture more balance and diversity. -Brad Koval

Taken with a Canon PowerShot S90, 1/125 second and f/4.9, ISO 100. Contrast and saturation modified in Paint.NET.

A sheen of oil on Puget Sound, half shaded by a pier. And on the right, a starscape with a couple of hemi-ringed dark planets. -Brian Hall

I wanted to give the illusion of microphotography, so I took a dish soap bottle, shook it and captured the shapes made by the bubbles on the plastic. I put the image in negative and gave it a dark blue hue to ressemble a x-ray. The camera settings were : 1/400s f/2.8 ISO 320 100mm -Céline Ruffino.

Canon G11, f8, 1/8 sec, ISO200, 6mm focal length. I took this photo downtown late Saturday night while out with my wife. It is the top of an information kiosk that was lit by blue LEDs. After trying a couple of different angles, I liked this one the best. I love how the metal seems to glow. -Charles Erickson

Hitachi HDC-1095E 35mm lens ISO-64

I'm doing art a-level and this is a canvas painting i did, i burnt the canvas then stitched up the canvas, then painted it, i took a load of photos because i love photography and stumbled across the competition later the same day. -Charlotte Gorzelak

Canon EOS Rebel XSi, EF-S 18-55mm Lens f/5.6 at 1/100 ISO 400 focal length 34mm This is a wet floor mat that I rolled slightly to provide the curvature. I tweaked saturation, temperature and exposure a little in iPhoto. -Chris Thompson

The subject is the disney concert hall in downtown los angeles, shot from across grand avenue at about 330 in the morning on my way home from work last night. i was choosing between this one and another shot that captured more of the building's dynamic geometry, but in the end i liked the simplicity of this one. it's almost a duplicate of a shot i took a few months ago, but i wanted to get it within the timeframe of the rules. while the building is silver in daylight, the reflected streetlights and passing cars (combined with a long exposure) turn the place solid gold once the sun goes down. shot with a lumix dmc-zs1, ISO 80, with a 15-second exposure. not a particularly snazzy camera, but it's a solid point-and-shoot with a 12x optical zoom, and hasn't failed to get me the images i'm looking for. -Dave

This is a photograph of Mount McKinley. Mount McKinley is the tallest mountain in North America. Well, okay. This is actually a photograph of Polychrome, a ridgeline and ‘mountain' right across from mount McKinley. And besides, it takes 20 to 30 days to summit McKinley and only half who try actually make it. Some die virtually every year but, McKinley sounds better, I think. Anyway, Denali is awesome, and highway 8, a 100 mile gravel road just south is a maybe better than the National park. This isn't exactly what I was trying to get but you have to admit, you didn't guess it was a mountain. I just got back today, and thanks to my Mother for calling me with this weeks' challenge. -David Lantz

Canon EOS 7D 1/20 F/5.0 canon 50mm 1/8 lens ISO: 800

Well, we have an old English sheep dog who loves to go outside and roll around in the grass. As most of us know summer is flea season so we bought a flea killer to capture all the ones he brings inside the house. At night we leave it on when going to sleep and noticed the view from the top was pretty sweet. -Dino Lie

Camera: Nikon D90 18-105 mm lens ISO 400 f/8 hand held - no tripod Photo taken at 5:25 PM 8/4/2010

To make an abstract photo I wanted to capture the play of light and shadow on a white surface. I used the ceiling skylight in my living room catching the shadows it cast in the late afternoon. I concentrated on the corner where the skylight meets the ceiling. Three plane surfaces come together here and with the shadows form 6 triangles creating a pleasing composition of monochromatic light and dark imparting depth and mystery to the photo. I especially like the texture and the monochromatic nature of this photo. -Duane Sager

I was camping with my family and was trying to take some pictures while hiking on the shoreline. I was suddenly reminded of one of my favorite photographers, Arno Minkkinen, and attempted to emulate his style. I realized I needed about 6 months of yoga before I could try to do these poses. Everybody was watching me fall over multiple times, but I finally got a picture I liked. This was a self portrait with a ten second timer. Shot on a Canon XSi and kit lens at 1/320 with f/8. Contrast and black and white were done in Gimp. -Forrest Sherman

Taken with the camera and standard camera app on my HTC Desire. I blu tacked on a disposable camera lens to act as a macro lens. The picture is of the battery connectors in an Xbox 360 controller. -Frances Vevers

Equipment: Nikon D5000, AF-S 18-105 VR Settings: 1/30 s, 105 mm, f/16, ISO 200

It is a rotating ring. Neon lights in a room made ripple effect. I got the idea when my girlfriend was playing with her ring. I shot it first at a dinner to show my friend that I can make good photography in a bad light condition without his f/1.8 lens. I re-shot it On a white desk and more light. It turned out well enough to submit. -Janez Kos

Panasonic GH1 1/800 sec iso 400 M42 to Micro 4/3 adapter with a reverse mounted Pentacon 1.8/50mm lens set to f8 Sima LED cube for lighting

I painstakingly arranged the coloured pencils, many many times. Shooting macro handheld required extra light, so I pulled out my seldom used Sima LED. I love my old Pentacon lens, and reverse mounting it on an interchangable lens camera like the GH1 can give some incredible results, but you will have to take a few shots, as you teeter in and out of focus. -Jeffrey Mason

Canon T2i, 60mm macro lens, shutter 1/80, aperture f/2.8 and ISO 800 Drops of water on my running jacket after a run in the first rainfall of the summer. -Joanna Law

Canon Rebel Xt Lens: Kit Lens (18-55mm) Focal Length: 55mm Exposure time: 30 seconds ISO: 100 f/29

My friend and I went to Minnetrista late at night. I framed a display light between a sculptures' glass panels. -Joe Huber

This is a reflection of a dock in the water near Baltimore's Inner Harbor. I used a Canon Digital Rebel XT and Canon 70-300 Lens at 300mm, f/5.6, 1/200 sec and ISO 100. -Joe Russo

I took this shot of an old glass insulator with my Canon XS. I used a 55mm focal length and a macro filter, a cheap workaround for a macro lens. It's a 1/8 second exposure at F8 with an ISO of 800. -John Chapman

Was at the Westbury Gardens in Westbury, NY taking pictures of the building and surrounding gardens. Old Westbury Gardens is the former estate of John Shaffer Phipps (1874-1958), heir to a U.S. Steel fortune. Westbury House, the Charles II-style mansion designed by George A. Crawley, contains 23 rooms. The grounds cover 160 acres. I came upon one of the low concrete walls that surround the main house when I looked at the ornate corner at the top part of the wall. I'll leave it up to the readers imagination as to what it might look like!

Picture taken with my Canon EOS Rebel T2i with Aperture mode at f8 and 1/180 sec shutter speed. ISO 100 with a EF 50mm f/1.8 II lens. Shot handheld while trying to bend across the wall to get the exact picture I was looking for. -John McNamara

After just sitting down with the family to watch a bluray on the PS3, thirty seconds into the previews I experienced the famous Yellow Light of Death. After a complete disassembly of the Playstation and heat gun treatment of the main board to reseat the cpu I took the opportunity to snap a few macro shots while the board cooled. Thanks to poor light and hurrying I did not get any good shots but after reassembling the PS3 we were able to watch our movie (repair successful!) Later I snapped another shot of my monitor while displaying a piece of the circuit and produced the attached image. It is a bit hard on the eyes but it is definitely abstract and the pixilated shot of the board is very tech appropriate too! Shot with a Pentax K10D (final shot was 1/90sec f 2.8 iso1100 50mm focal length) -John Zeweniuk

"Monster"

Shooting info: Nikon D90 200mm (18-200mm Nikkor) ISO 200 shutter speed 1/15 (no tripod) f 8

Was on a late night run to Kroger and as I was walking out to my car I noticed a creepy reflection in a puddle of water upon the asphalt. This is the illuminated sign from a Cato store, mirrored in the water. Just caught it from the corner of my eye and thought it was perfectly abstract. Kinda of looks like a fish or giant squid to me. Love the Giz photo challenge. Pushes me too see and think. -Jonathan Keys

This is a photo of a floodlight taken by my iphone 4. I was waiting to get picked up from the camp where I work and was being eaten by bugs when I decided to get some shots in for the contest. I was looking around when I saw how the light looked on my phone's screen. I took two shots, with the second one being the best. It was about 8:30 pm when I took this, and there was no flash used. Equipment: iPhone 4, resized in photoshop (smaller) and microsoft paint (wallpaper). The wallpaper is rotated. -Jon Schultz

Shot with a Canon T1i on a beach in South Padre Island, Tx. Its the underneath of my beach umbrella -Kevin Johnson

Canon EOS 50D Lens EF50 mm f/1.8 II 1/500 sec f/1.8 ISO 100 50mm

I first thought the "Abstract" theme was quite tricky. I was looking for some abstract building part outside all the time and could not find anything suitable. Then I bought a new camera to replace my old EOS 350D and started to do some tryout shots on our balcony. And suddenly I found my abstract motive. It is a wind chime. -Maren Ko

Pentax k-x, kit lens ISO 400 F5.6 1/40 -3EV 38mm

Melting ice lit with headlamp (2 red spots in background) on the black glossy surface of my HP laptop. -Mellanie Fuller

Camera: iPhone 4 Aperture: f-2.4 Focal length: 3.8mm Shutter 1/209 ISO: 80

Processing: Adjusted in Aperture 3.03, contrast and color, slight crop. Sunlight coming through holes of window blinds makes dots on the table of a Chinese Restaurant. Lunch: Spicy Szechuan Beef, yummy. -Mike Evans

Canon Kiss X4 (550D), EFs 60mm f/2.8 USM, Av Mode, Aperture 2.8, Shutter speed 1/6, ISO 800

I have recently been given a book as a present called "The world's greatest places" It's a thick book of beautiful photos taken all over the world and my abstract photo this week is of the pages from the corner. -Min Park

Shot with a Canon EOS 450D;18-55 lens; 1/3 sec at f/5,0 exposure; 39mm focal length;ISO 200; without flash -Neacsu Claudia

Canon Rebel XSI, EF-S 60mm f2.8 Macro USM, Av Mode, Aperture: f2.8, Shutter: 1/2 sec, ISO 100 I basically just quickly looked around the house seeing if there was anything that struck my fancy. I settled on a railing by some stairs at my house. Originally I went for a landscape look, but decided on portrait instead. After I took the shot, it wasn't quite up to spec, so I made it black and white and added in some vignetting to help draw the focus. Sometimes finding the "shot" is right in your own home! -Nick Camp

Canon EOS Rebel XS with EF 18-55mm kit lens 1/640 @ f/8.0 ISO 800

It took me until today to find something abstract enough for this shooting challenge. I put together only the bottom portion of a clarinet and shined a six bulbed LED flashlight through one end and I shot the picture from the other end. Inside the clarinet there are many scratches and imperfections which gives it those nice swirled lines instead of a perfect reflection. -Nick Cheng

Camera: Pentax *ist DL Lens: Pentax Kit lens ISO: 200 f/13 Exposure: 1/60

Im brand new to photography, i have only had my camera for about a week and a half and i couldn't wait to finally be able to submit a photo to the challenge. Anyway, I feel like this photo captures "Abstract". when i look at it i see grass in space, or something like that. out of all the shots i took i like this one the best... It's actually just some fake grass in a vase in my hallway. -Nick Frega

I snapped it somewhat randomly while doing my weekly cleaning on Friday afternoon — I had a candle burning, and liked the way the flame shone through the bottom of a wine glass as I was cleaning it. I ended up taking several of the wineglasses in the candle light, and thought a collection of these might make for interesting art displayed around the bar, but this is the only one that — I think — truly fell into the "abstract" category. -Nicole Lombardi

Camera: Canon EOS Digital Rebel T1i EF-S lens: EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS ISO: 400/ 1/500/ F11

This is actually a Christmas decoration [ball]. I have a hollowed out piece of glass that is shaped as a perfect cone hollowed out in the middle. I'm able to practically enclose the lens of the camera into this piece of glass [base side of the cone on the camera lens] and get this effect from it along with some lighting I placed accordingly. Some flash/lighting artifacts are present due to the glass cone. -Ozone Pilot

Canon 50D, ISO 100, f6.3, 1/80, EF-S 18-200mm F3.5-5.6 IS @ 24 mm

Another Sunday morning capture. This weekend, we were staying at our dear friend's house for the weekend. After reviewing the selection of abstract images shot the previous day in the Minneapolis - St. Paul area, I looked up from the couch I was sitting on and saw the object of my submission - the skylight. I liked how the sun was lighting the area. Image tweaked a bit in Aperture and Photoshop. -Paul Konopacki

Olympus E-620 with Olympus Zuiko 12-60mm f/2.8-4.0 lens Settings: 3 shot HDR @ f/3.9, 45mm, ISO 200, 1/200, 1/400, and 1/800 seconds Merged and converted to monochrome in Photoshop CS5 Location: A vintage car show at Cummings Center in Beverly, MA. This is the hood ornament of a beautiful vintage Chrysler. -Peter Lee

Samsung TL350 in "Smart" mode, ISO 160 Location: A pedway tunnel in Chicago's Millennium Train Station, underneath Macy's and the Chicago Cultural Center. -Phil Gullett

Shot with a Canon 40d with a 70-200mm f/2.8, shot fully zoomed at f/16 1/200 iso 250.

I shot with such a high aperature so I could get all of the roof tiles in focus, seeing as they are not all within the same focal plane and I think having everything in focus really adds to abstract photography. You no longer have the focus to tell you how far away something or to give the object scale.

I shot this photo of roof tile within my neighborhood, which I saw on one of my many walks with my dog. -Randy Metcalf

Canon T2i, 18-55mm kit lens, ISO 3200, 1/4 second exposure. -Robbie Short

Taken with Panasonic DMC-FX20PP with Leica DC Vario-Elmarit lens.

My target subject today was metal or stone. Close shot of the back end of a semi tailor in a semi graveyard. Had to snap and dash as a security guard was heading my way. -Robert Kallansa

Canon t2i, f/10, 6sec, ISO 100 and EFS 60mm. My girlfriend got new hanging lights for our hallway and I saw they were throwing off some really cool shadows on the wall. -Robert Zelin

Canon 500D, with 100mm 2.8 Macro lens, at f3.5 and 1/160s. This was taken in a mall, where these bright neons shone on the ceiling. They reminded me of modern abstract paintings, with simple but random geometrical forms and colors. I chose to focus on a specific portion of the neons, to keep the composition to its simplest form. -Romain Gresset

Canon EOS Rebel T1i. F/5.6 1/1250

I was not sure how to do this challenge so I walked around one afternoon with my camera and shot everything I thought looked interesting. I found some beautiful flowers and some pictures and decided in mass they could be quite abstract. I used this opportunity to learn a bit about the filters in photoshop and I liked the look of the plastic wrap and I thought it made it really abstract. -Sally Reece

Camera: Nikon D90 Lens: Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 Settings: Aperture f/1.8 + Auto Exposure + ISO Lo1.0 (ISO100) Post-processing: Curves in Photoshop CS5

I've been wanting to take part in the shooting challenges since forever, but couldn't find the time because of ongoing studies. Today, I tried to attempt shooting something abstract. I took a pack of marbles, poured them into a tall glass, placed them on a black tabletop and fired away with the camera.

Now, I know that bokeh is very common, but I thought that maybe the crystal pattern on the glass' bottom would give a nice effect, so I went for it anyway. -Salman Arif

Canon 7D with Canon f/2.8L 100mm Macro lens Settings: Manual focus, ISO 320, f5.6, 1/250 sec, flash not used

Sunday morning I just decided to take a walk in my apartment complex, I was looking for insects, flies to shoot but then I found this section of leaves which had a near transparent spider net filled with water droplets. -Sandeep Patil

Nikon D3000 18-55mm VR lens f5.6 ISO 1200

The shot was taken from the side of a wrought iron bench in my backyard (the bench a survivor of Hurricane Katrina btw). The brown you see in the background is the wooden slats, and the green stripe is grass. I particularly like the multidimensional look of the iron. and the resulting shadows. -Sandy G

There's this lookout tower a the Greenwich portion of Prince Edward Island National Park; it's a big spiral staircase and is all rusted out, but still polished down and smooth to the touch. Looking back down the support columns, and safety rails jutting out on all angles looked pretty cool, so I took a picture. Used Aperture for a bit of cleanup from my Sony Alpha A200 with the kit AF 18-70mm lens, shutter at 1/80 w ISO 100 -Sean Wylie-Toal

Pentax K-x 50mm 1/8s f/20 iso-100

So we have been getting some rainy weather lately. I was actually scoping out a location for shooting lightning. What your seeing is rain drops on my windshield and a street light. I took many shots, and I really struggled deciding which one to send in. In the end I picked this one for it's simplicity. -Shawn Nicholas

Shooting Challenge Abstraction Gallery 2 Nikon D90 Focal length: 22 F/7.1 Exposure time: 1/160 WB: Fluorescent

I went looking in my backyard to capture something for the contest. I stuck the lens into the opening of a spiral garden hose and took a few shots with a few different focal lengths, f stops and WB settings. The mid afternoon sunlight cast an interesting stripe pattern on the hose surface. Keeping the WB on sunlight /shade did not give me the surreal look I was looking for. I wasn't able to capture that abstract look with the hose being visible in that particular lighting. Therefore I went with the WB set to fluorescent and that gave me the shot that I have submitted for the contest. -Shubha Murti

On this picture I was working outdoors when I saw an almost destroyed spider web, some sprinklers were running a few minutes before that, so some of the drops were almost like floating on the air, so what I did was to take the picture with my Phone, HTC HD2, use on the settings ISO 100, maximum brightness and chose the florescent white balance, to give a different hue to the image, loved the results, is nice what you can do sometimes while working. -Uriel Montenegro

Camera: Canon EOS 7D Lens: Canon 100mm Macro Shutter Speed: 1/30 sec Aperture: f/6.3

I thought I wouldn't find anything to take a picture of for this contest. Walking through my kitchen, I glanced at something on the wall and realized it might work. I won't say what it is, but I think it turned out abstract enough! There is some levels adjustment of the final picture as well as an image rotation. -Viet Nguyen

What you see is an optical fiber lamp gizmo under 30 second exposure. The rods are moving slightly creating a blurred surface effect. -Yuri Polyakov

Olympus Stylus 1030sw on macro for shot.

This picture is of the headlight of my F-150 because nobody truly looks at the headlights and wouldn't think of how many angles the covers refract the light (and it looks pretty sweet). The orange comes from the turn signal next to it and the red probably comes from my shirt. -Zac Wallace

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