Creating a Natural Abstract Photograph

August 02, 2021

 

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Photographer: Menashe Davidson 

Summary Author: Menashe Davidson 

The photo above shows a purple anemone flower as observed through water drops coating a sheet of clear plastic. It was taken in my home garden in Rishon LeZion, Israel. A water drop can act as a convex lens. Such lenses are thicker in the center than along their edges and can magnify and also distort objects placed behind them.

Since I focused here in on a fragment of a natural scene in my garden, I purposely created a seemingly unreal impression from a real object -- the anemone. So, it can be thought of as an abstract photograph that captures a sensation, a mood, but to create it I had to begin with something concrete, in this case with water drops and flowers. The drops beautifully reflect the world about the anemone. Click here to see a video of this phenomenon.