Beech Trees in Abstract
Abstracts
Amazingly, this is my 200th personal blog entry on photography, and to celebrate the occasion, I thought I could do something a tad different and talk about a photographic technique that I was taught long ago, but that I was reminded of only recently.
I am the Membership Director of the Nova Scotia and PEI branches of the Photographic Society of America, and as a PSA member I get a wonderful monthly magazine. In last month’s magazine, there was a great article about Freeman Patterson and the use of something called Intentional Camera Movement (ICM for short) to create abstract images in our photography. I took several courses from Freeman back in the late 1980s and early 1990s and have a couple of books of his signed by the author. The article detailed Freeman’s thinking that sometimes “a sense of place can be better expressed by an impression rather than a literal image”.
My wife and I went for a walk in Ellenwood Provincial Park this past week, and with the article in my mind, I began playing again with a more abstract impressionist vision of the beech trees, the light and the forest. The result shown comes from a rather long exposure time and some intentional movement of the camera.
It's so much fun to photograph things, and fun as well to try out varying techniques, to express what one sees in a variety of ways.
