APPstract RESULT: 2Weekly APPstract Challenge #9 Abstract Your Way

7D51BB98-4DB7-4688-BE12-EA26C992A264.jpeg

Since when are footprints in the snow higher than the surrounding snow? There’s a flip going on. Reality has been inverted. And yet it’s a completely straight photograph. The situation itself is an abstraction.
 
View attachment 122603
Since when are footprints in the snow higher than the surrounding snow? There’s a flip going on. Reality has been inverted. And yet it’s a completely straight photograph. The situation itself is an abstraction.

Your last two posts-with-explanation resonate with my favourite thoughts about “abstract”. Ie, I have nothing nailed down in my mind about ‘what abstract means’, but the idea of art inviting the reader to see differently some aspect of reality is aesthetically pleasing to me :)
 
Snow Music.
B91D979A-1C75-4D22-9D70-489B7B32C5B2.jpeg

Seeing the twig shadows on the snow as a music staff, a bit alternate in style, is an abstraction. Using snowflakes to represent music notes is another abstraction. Imagining the natural music made by snow is another abstraction to take place in the mind of the viewer.
Snowflakes made in iOrnament, assembly in Affinity Photo. There was one other diagonal line that needed to be removed because it interrupted the impression of the shadow lines as a music staff.
 
Simplify.
8C5E40C4-30C7-462E-A31F-EC5EB22CF6D7.jpeg


I realize these latest things I posted are not typical for this APPstract series. Well, apps are involved, but they aren’t abstract in the way most people think of abstract. They are abstract in that they deviate from a literal interpretation of reality. They may be closer to what I think of as Pictorial Abstraction. Some of them are more like Contemplative Photography or Nalanda Miksang - a topic I still want to explore in MobiWorkshop.

This photo started out as a long exposure in NightCap Pro and I really liked the smoothing effect it had on details. It was further simplified in iColorama and other details were eliminated in Affinity Photo. In a couple of my NightCap Pro photos from this setting most of the leaves disappeared from the branches. For some reason I find this stripping down to the basic forms quite compelling. But I have no illusions that my take on abstraction lies outside of the usual APPstract. Making them more APPstract through overlays and layers wouldn’t get me closer to what I wanted in these images.

The book “The Practice of Contemplative Photography” is on my bedside table, along with Rumi and Calvin & Hobbes. A strange combination, I thought.
 
Dream of wild horses


View attachment 122647

Hipsta Shift Union
This is quite fascinating to explore. I’m guessing that the tonal inversion suggests that most horses are the opposite of wild? Or for a horse to dream about being free or wild must be the opposite of what they are.

I wonder if I’m being influenced by a radio program I listened to yesterday about activists working in the legal system to change the way that, currently, animals are property owned by certain people. Living autonomous non-human animals have no rights or status under the law. While at the same time a corporation, obviously a non-living entity, has the status of personhood under the law.
 
Last edited:
Thank you to all who participated in #9 of this evolving challenge:thumbs: :notworthy: :inlove: :D

I particularly appreciate FundyBrian ’s willingness to share his explorations, puzzlements and delights as he investigates this new-for-him area :notworthy:
In fact, Brian, I think your posts could usefully be extracted and compiled as part of a ‘beginner’s blog’ :thumbs:

Thank you to JillyG for a theme which continued the exploratory/conversational motif we have enjoyed so far :notworthy: :thumbs: :inlove:

Time for Jilly to choose her favourite/s!

Please note:
MobiTog major upgrade happening this weekend may slow things down

Remember to save your own bookmarks — the new version will not retain them!

Matt Smooth is working through night and day to minimise disruption to our Mobi activities — please keep him and his techie labours in your thoughts :)
 
I can honestly say that I have loved everyone’s interpretation of “Abstract”. They are all beautiful and I would happily exhibit them all in my art gallery, if I had one. But the one image that I would hang on my own wall is FundyBrian Brian’s Simplify.

A8142634-6D1D-4DD5-9D56-0BFDFAEC6568.jpeg


Now I’m no expert in what constitutes an abstract, but I know what I like and it’s this one. Everything paired down, with just the right amount of detail remaining makes this such a tranquil image. The composition is fabulous, and don’t get me started on the colours! The fact that this is a real place and not an artist’s figment makes it even better. And I too have enjoyed Brian’s processes, both thought and deed, in this challenge. I feel like we’ve been on a journey. Thank you Brian.
 
I can honestly say that I have loved everyone’s interpretation of “Abstract”. They are all beautiful and I would happily exhibit them all in my art gallery, if I had one. But the one image that I would hang on my own wall is FundyBrian Brian’s Simplify.

View attachment 122699

Now I’m no expert in what constitutes an abstract, but I know what I like and it’s this one. Everything paired down, with just the right amount of detail remaining makes this such a tranquil image. The composition is fabulous, and don’t get me started on the colours! The fact that this is a real place and not an artist’s figment makes it even better. And I too have enjoyed Brian’s processes, both thought and deed, in this challenge. I feel like we’ve been on a journey. Thank you Brian.
Beautiful!
 
I can honestly say that I have loved everyone’s interpretation of “Abstract”. They are all beautiful and I would happily exhibit them all in my art gallery, if I had one. But the one image that I would hang on my own wall is FundyBrian Brian’s Simplify.

View attachment 122699

Now I’m no expert in what constitutes an abstract, but I know what I like and it’s this one. Everything paired down, with just the right amount of detail remaining makes this such a tranquil image. The composition is fabulous, and don’t get me started on the colours! The fact that this is a real place and not an artist’s figment makes it even better. And I too have enjoyed Brian’s processes, both thought and deed, in this challenge. I feel like we’ve been on a journey. Thank you Brian.
Wow! I never expected this at all. Thank you Jilly! I have been enjoying APPstract and all the new things I’m learning along the way.
 
I can honestly say that I have loved everyone’s interpretation of “Abstract”. They are all beautiful and I would happily exhibit them all in my art gallery, if I had one. But the one image that I would hang on my own wall is FundyBrian Brian’s Simplify.

View attachment 122699

Now I’m no expert in what constitutes an abstract, but I know what I like and it’s this one. Everything paired down, with just the right amount of detail remaining makes this such a tranquil image. The composition is fabulous, and don’t get me started on the colours! The fact that this is a real place and not an artist’s figment makes it even better. And I too have enjoyed Brian’s processes, both thought and deed, in this challenge. I feel like we’ve been on a journey. Thank you Brian.
Well done, Brian. Most deserved!
 
I was at a retreat centre one time a few years ago and awoke in the morning to the sound on someone playing a Native American flute on the other side of the next sleeping building, so the sound was echoing back from the valley wall. It was hauntingly beautiful, without a single synthesizer.
That sounds a-mazing.
 
I can honestly say that I have loved everyone’s interpretation of “Abstract”. They are all beautiful and I would happily exhibit them all in my art gallery, if I had one. But the one image that I would hang on my own wall is FundyBrian Brian’s Simplify.

View attachment 122699

Now I’m no expert in what constitutes an abstract, but I know what I like and it’s this one. Everything paired down, with just the right amount of detail remaining makes this such a tranquil image. The composition is fabulous, and don’t get me started on the colours! The fact that this is a real place and not an artist’s figment makes it even better. And I too have enjoyed Brian’s processes, both thought and deed, in this challenge. I feel like we’ve been on a journey. Thank you Brian.
Bravo FundyBrian Brian!! I’ve been loving your explorations too.
 
Back
Top Bottom