Here I simply did a dispersion effect to create an effect making these photograph appear somewhat disintegrating into the air.  Firstly I copied my planet like circle which I cut out onto a new white layer.  I then duplicated this layer.  With the original layer I clicked on filter and liquify.  From here I smudged the edges of my photograph.  After this, I added a clip layer mask onto the original layer. and using the brush tool with varying pressures and sizes selected the areas I wanted dispersed.

Here I felt inspired by the fact that often Global Warming is destroying the Earth.  I believe I have captured how the slow process of the global warming is affecting our planet.  I wanted to create these images with a direct link to abstraction through the fact I have heavily liquefied the pano-spheres  and stretched them.  This is a sharp contrast to the my previous pano spheres in the sense that before I explored an abstraction that showed a normal, ordered functioning and neat appearing planet like object.  However now I have shown the opposite, a world in tatters.  This stretching of areas of the photograph has created an effect that appears very surreal in the sense the Earth is being blown up appearing slightly scary.  I like this because its abstract qualities is opposite to this but I believe works nicely because the delicacy of the dispersed particles with varying strengths appears very unreal creating an effect of which the Earth is crumbling away in our atmosphere before our eyes and that life is continuing without people raising an eyebrow.  I feel I am hinting at what could happen if people continue to live this way, destroying our beautiful planet.

Victoria Siemer

Is a photographer focusing on photo manipulation using Photoshop.  Her inspirations come from various other artists since she had no formal photography training, she paid attention to others styles, for example street photographer Dave Krugman.  Her works often include a dramatic  environment with strong levels of symmetry, proving a contrast to the wild and abstract locations she is shooting in.  This part of her work is called “Geometric Reflection”.  Here include some examples of her work:

My own responses

I chose to experiment with this as it linked in with the theme of abstract photography and the fact I felt inspired by Victoria Siemer.   The definition for Geometric Abstraction is “Geometric abstraction is a form of abstract art based on the use of geometric forms sometimes, though not always, placed in non-illusionistic space and combined into non-objective (non-representational) compositions. ” .  For my ideas I simply copied the layer of my photograph by pressing ctrl+J.  I then selected an area of a shape using a marquee tool and rotated it to my desired angle.  After this, I used the rubber tool to remove areas I didn’t want to capture a sense of reflection whereas in others I didn’t and simply left them rotated.

I believe this fits well into my theme of abstract and surrealism in photography because these pieces of work emphasis the abstract with the interesting shapes that look quite abnormal.   I believe I have done this successfully because they almost appear quite surreal that the abstraction within the photograph looks as if it is part of the photograph.  Here I have particularity focused on textures as they enhance many of the abstract shapes within the photograph and in some, color too because this exaggerates the abstraction so far that it appears surreal.  I personally enjoy observing the beauty of fine, particular details within a setting and by doing this, I feel inspired to isolate various parts and make them appear surreal.  This therefore poses the idea to you of how a very normal looking viewpoint in day to day life, I use for surprising and strange elements that shouldn’t fit in but do, to express how to others how I can see the world through interesting shapes, colors and textures.