Abstract Photography - Part 1 (of Many)

Even before sports photography, my earliest interest in photography was probably of taking photos at night and manipulating light sources (usually neon lights and car lights back then) to produce abstract images.

I use the term "abstract" to cover a broad range of my photos though.  I use "abstract" to describe any photo where I've manipulated the camera to produce an image that would not otherwise normally exist.  In some of my abstract images, you can still see some identifiable details while in others you can't (the latter would probably be closer to the true definition of "abstract").

Many times I shoot abstract pictures to create a sense of motion.  I've had a great deal of success doing this at drum corps shows (examples to follow later).  I create most of my abstract images by manipulating a zoom lens during a long exposure (often more than second in length). Sometimes I use a tripod for these shots and sometimes not.   I'm not sure if there is a term or multiple terms to describe the technique(s) I use.

Two techniques used by other photographers (but not me) to create abstract images are kinetic photography and camera tossing.  There's even a blog about camera tossing.  (I guess there's a blog for everything!)  Also, here's an interesting article about camera tossing.  As explained in the article (along with accompanying videos), not only is camera tossing used to capture abstract images, but at least one photographer is using camera tossing to take non-abstract group photos.

The three images above were all taken of the same subject (and I think these photos would clearly be considered abstract).  Care to venture a guess as to what the subject of the photos was?  The current holiday season should offer a clue.