Weekly Abstract and Experimental Thread #21 (8-12-2025)

The weekly Abstract and Experimental thread
This weekly thread, starting on a Tuesday, allows us to showcase our abstract and experimental photos and get some feedback.
Opening up discussions, not only on content, style, composition & techniques, but also on the creativity of the image.

It’s easy to participate
Post an image with a title and description. To make it easier to view in the forum, all comments should include the original title and at least one of the original images as a quote.

Thread Guidelines:
This weekly thread is for sharing and developing abstract and experimental photography skills.
We want to see wild, creative photography.
Give your entry a clear title and mention the technique used.
Provide constructive feedback on others’ images.
Try to go beyond simple praise or dismissal and explain why you like it, or what caught your eye.
”Likes” are encouraged too.
Negative feedback and suggestions are also OK (be polite, honest, and constructive).
Giving feedback is just as important as receiving feedback, both help to improve our artistic and technical skills.

What is an abstract or experimental photo?
Different ways to see and investigate the world around us. Abstract photography reduces a subject to shapes, tones or colors making it unrecognizable. Abstract subjects are everywhere.

Experimentation might include, Stereo/3D, Infrared, dragged shutter, zone plate, motion, fluorescence, multiple exposure, birefringence, ultra violet, optical including adapted lenses, tri color, fractals, manipulated Polaroids, pinhole, Kirlian (bioelectrography) and many other methods. Experimentation can be for artistic expression or pure science. It is often more difficult than standard types of photography. This is fine, we aren't expecting perfection. Every experiment enhances knowledge. Your idea can help others explore the universe around them. We love experimentation. You can explain your process or keep it a secret.

This will be a looser collection of photos compared to other weekly threads. This is good. It will be a place to get away from standard animals, babies & sunset photos. We don't hate animals, babies or sunsets. Show us your creative abstract and experimental images. Don't worry, if you are unsure, if the image fits the category. Just post it. This is supposed to be fun.

Thanks for looking and participating,
barondla

Another with the Soratama setup. Proving it can be used for more than flowers.
Thanks for looking and participating,
barondla

Dam Angels

I spend a good bit of my photography time at the local dam, a hideous structure where various water birds gather. Mostly I take fairly traditional photos but sometimes I play. Here is what happens when the terns are migrating and the water release is a little heavy and you use a slow shutter and camera movement.

Very nice - I like both images: The first one for the interesting angelic birds and the tension and the second one for the wonderful interplay of lines and chaos. Well done!

Flow of thoughts by simple.joy, on Flickr

I like the first because it surprised me!
At first I saw the water spout, then suddenly from within the bokeh a person appeared; looking like she was painted by an impressionist artist.

The colours and patterns are lovely in the second

Two good artistic shots of the powerful water and its birds :-)

Snub-nosed croc

The first image is magical. Birds have just the right amount of movement. The title fits perfectly.
I like the use of B&W in the second image.
Thanks for sharing and participating,
barondla

The Milky Way above a moonset. The scene is natural, meaning the cosmic landscape was not added over a different ground-based landscape containing the moonset.

Vertical panorama obtained with Sony a6300 and Samyang 12mm f2 lens, stack of multiple images.

Stunning bokeh "ghost". Took me a while to catch it. Peaceful image with pastel colors and everything soft except faucet. But, the "ghost" looking at the faucet is a tad unnerving.

The second image has beautiful colors and the large bubble is an important contribution.
Thanks for sharing and participating,
barondla

Spectacular capture. Vertical panos are so cool. This one has it all, sharpness, color, composition and extreme degree of difficulty.
Superb as always.
Thanks for sharing and participating,
barondla

Think it is abstract. Could also be considered experimental, since you made a very tiny part of the foreground in focus while throwing the mill out of focus. Either way I like the implementation. The mill adds mystery to the photo. Guessing you had to manual focus to get such a small subject in focus?
Thanks for sharing and participating,
barondla

Wouldn't want to run into him. The out of focus foreground vegetation momentarily hides the croc. Then the croc becomes apparent - just like real life! Terrific capture, just be careful.
Thanks for sharing and participating,
barondla

Evening Flight

Our local rooks make the short journey every evening from the meadows in the valley to their roost in the trees behind our house. Trying to capture the essence of their exodus I shot in burst mode and blended 7 images.

I really appreciate the skill and patience to achieve such results. My efforts in astrophotography have been disappointing.

Thanks for the appreciation!

Indeed, for good results, a lot of patience is needed for fine manual adjustments before entering the images into the specialized program for stacking.
First, I went on a trip to test the equipment and methods of collecting images, followed by a test session for editing. The first test was done too close to a city and the result was visibly affected by residual light from the atmosphere.

For the second test (this photo) I found a location with much reduced residual light, but which gives a pleasant halo effect at a great distance, close to the horizon.
A serious problem lies in the qualities of the lens used, which should be free of spherical aberrations. The Samyang 12mm f/2.0 NCS CS offers very good sharpness in the center at f/2.0, but modest towards the edges. As a result, its use in astrophotography requires special methods for use. For me, the most practical (which I don't think anyone uses) turned out to be using two identical cameras, with two identical lenses, perfectly aligned horizontally and vertically, in parallel on a bar used for 3D, the difference being that one of the lenses should provide a perfectly clear image in the center and the other a clearer image towards the edges.

The rest of the process begins with obtaining a third series of images with maximum clarity, obtained after mixing each pair of images in the suite that is about to be stacked.

Neat idea and execution. I've combined lightning shots but never even thought to try birds. Fascinating results. Was it time consuming to do all the blending? You went the extra mile to bring the exodus to life. Well done.
Thanks for sharing,
barondla

Interesting. I've used the same lens on my EM5ii. Having two, and two cameras, clearly helps, especially if you're already set up for stereo captures. What stacking software do you use?

The blending is very quick and easy in Photoshop, just the same process as for focus stacking.

Photoshop in the first phase, for the first operations, DeepSkyStacker for the star stack and finally Photoshop again for the final finishes.