Prior to my mother’s passing, I had a perfect record submitting to 52 Frames, my weekly photography group.  For over two years — 110 weeks in a row — a submitted a picture based on the weekly theme, no matter what was happening in my life.  As hectic as my life might have been, I always managed to submit a picture, even if it was just a quick snapshot.

Unfortunately, since then, I have not been as consistent.  I only submitted three times in the last eight weeks and, even then, it was often just a half-hearted effort.

However, my life is beginning to stabilize itself again and, I’m hoping, I can begin to concentrate more on my photography again.

Last week’s theme for 52 Frames was Abstract.  Normally, when I work a 52 Frames shot, I usually plan out the shot and then execute it (doing a great job or else failing miserably).  I rarely have “alternate” shots.  This week, however, was quite different.  This week I went to Bryant Park in New York City and began looking for different textures and patterns that would make for interesting abstract pictures.  I photographed various tree barks (including a peeling tree bark which became the shot I submitted) as well as various stone, metal and wood surfaces.  I also took some shots of geometric patterns formed by the windows of buildings around Bryant Park.

In addition, after post-processing some of them, I experimented with combining them into different compositions.  When you examine the pictures below, you’ll notice that some of them are combinations of others in the set.

This is the shot that I ended up submitting:

This is a shot of some tree bark, which, after some manipulation in Photoshop and using Topaz Labs, became the abstract you see here.

My alternate shots are below:

So, what do you think?  Did I submit the right shot?  Or would you have gone with a different one?  Let me know.  I’d love to hear from you.

When the theme of “Lines” came up for 52 Frames, I had, to be truthful, an entirely different type of shot in mind.  However, it didn’t quite work out as I planned.  Fortunately, I had a backup shot in mind which I could quickly pull off.

This shot was I like this shot for several reasons.  It was a different take on the theme.  I knew that everyone would be presenting their photos with lines (and there were some truly extraordinary pictures there), but I wanted something just a bit… different.

I also like this shot because we don’t often think of bar codes in this way.  Bar codes are ubiquitous — we see them tens, if not hundreds, of times a day.  Of course, they’re all different, but to us casual observers, they are pretty much the same.  We’re so used to seeing them in the same format and in the same style that when you see it differently, as in this picture, it makes you stop and think about it for a minute.

One last thing I like about this picture is that it was remarkably easy to make.  Do you have Photoshop?  Do you want to be able to produce this type of image?  If so, I put together a quick video (under four minutes) that shows you how it’s done.  Let me know if you want me to include further video tutorials on my photos.

Zev