I love shapes.
I probably shouldn’t. I draw worse than a three-year-old. Nearly failed high school geometry.
Simple forms can tell the loud, complicated world to shut up for a minute. Personally, I need that. A lot right now.
Recently I realized the process is a huge part of what I love about these. The final image is the top of the glacier, and I have to move into the water to show it to you.
Different images need different approaches. Here are a few of them.
Note: I don’t actually title these (at most they get pet names), so enjoy the names I just made up.
“The Intersection” (2018)
Sometimes you see something you can’t believe is just sitting there, in front of everyone. Like a $100 bill tacked to a bulletin board, you wonder why on earth it’s still there.
The process
1. As shot
This staircase belongs to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. I worked it from several angles (definitely confusing the other 40 people in the hallway).
2. Rotated
Then I turned it until it felt strongest. Placing the longer side at the bottom made it feel both rooted and reaching.
3. Straightened Out
I just like 90° lines, okay?
They make most images feel more intentional. Here they’re reinforcing the shape’s ‘stance’ as it plants and lifts.
4. Cleaned Up & Decontextualized
Time to jump from Lightroom to Photoshop. My goal was to surface the shape. The railing was visual clutter and gave confusing context clues. The lines along the insides weren’t adding anything.
5. Finalized
Now that the structure of the image was clear, I brought it back into Lightroom for relighting, color work, and toning.
“The Racetrack” (2024)
Like most of my abstracts, this image started on a walk. I saw something that grabbed me, played with it to find its most interesting form, and removed everything that wasn’t that.
The process
1. As shot
I shoot these with an open mind. I like making shapes from shadows because they’re temporary.
This image was shot in December, late afternoon. The sun wouldn’t hit exactly this spot again until this exactly this time again next year.
2. Crop area
Here’s the part I care about.
I shoot 99% of my abstracts with a 135mm lens. It’s a near-perfect balance of zoom and weight. But even with that much reach, I can’t always fill the frame. So I get as close as I can.
2.2 Cropped
If the crop is brutal, I upscale. Sometimes I use 5% of the original.
Historically I’ve used Super Resolution in Lightroom; this was the first image I used Gigapixel, and it was great.
Pro tip: Always crop a little outside what you think you’ll need.
3. Rotated
I’ll play with different orientations to see if something pops. These pictures intentionally don’t reflect reality. The original photo is a treated canvas, a springboard.
4. Flipped
In this case I rotation wasn’t enough.
I might flip and rotate several times as I go, even at the end. Choices are good.
5. Preset applied
When I start processing the same way for a bit, I make a preset. This preset revealed a structure in this image I didn’t see before, even after the rotating and flipping.
6. Adamized
My goal is to find that structure and get everything else out of its way. That’s the story. That’s its reason for being.
“The Ice Flo” (2018)
Most of the time my vision requires some post-processing. This was one of those rare birds that hatched almost ready to fly.
Like the first in this series, this was shot in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (about three months earlier).
The process
1. As shot
What a sexy bench.
The bright, sharp point of the parallelogram grabbed me.
2. Rotated
The magic is in taking something that exists, removing just enough context to untether it from reality, then presenting again it as real. 90° did 90% of the work.
3. Colored, Toned, and Structured
The molding on the wall was now an awkward artifact, and made the image busier.
The simple complementary colors reflected and supported the simple design. I don’t always beige, but when I do….
4. Cropped
My mom gave me my first advice about cropping: “Check your corners.” You can interpret that a lot of ways (and I do).
When possible, I like my angles to hinge at the corners. Makes the crop feel more intentional, complete.
5. Cleaned Up
You might not see the spots at first. You might not see them ever. But when you see one, you see them all, and that takes you out of the story.
6. Final
Still feels very satisfying that I found my way to a photograph which feels a lot like the paintings that surrounded it.