Thematic Photographic 200 - Abstract

Curves in the air
London, ON
June 2012

Welcome to our new Thematic theme, "abstract", where if it's weird and disconnected from reality, we want to see it.*

This particular shot was an interesting one to capture. My son had been attending an after-school youth program. Since it was a hot day, they were outside playing in the sprinkler when I pulled up to pick him up. Given the complexities involved in convincing a playful 11-year-old to break away from his friends so he can dry off and head home, I found myself waiting. A while.

The program leader asked me to take a few pictures of the kids, which I was happy to do. But even that got old after a few minutes when I realized there were only so many interesting ways to capture little people frolicking in a sprinkler while their parents begged them to finish up.

So I wandered off to the periphery and thought about ways of shooting the water, instead. I sat down on the grass and calculated how I was going to handle longish exposures in bright sunshine without a neutral density filter (must. add. to. list.) In the end, I settled on 1/5 of a second as a baseline, which made for some interesting patterns as I blindly tried to view the results on the sun-washed screen of my camera. Not a very elegant shoot, by any means, but I managed to snag a couple of useful frames by the time little man, now all nicely dressed and dry, found his way back to me.

Your turn: Thematic is all about shooting pictures that support the theme, posting them to your blog, leaving a comment here, then visiting other participants. It's all about exploring the theme for the entire week, participating as often as you wish, and hopefully introducing this insanity to someone new. Because photography wants - nay, needs - to be shared. And this is the best way I know to accomplish just that. Are you game? (If this is all new to you, click here and all will be explained.)

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* This isn't just a very special Blossom. It's a very special Thematic, too, our 200th. Thank you to everyone who's participated over the past few years, who's helped make this a highlight for me and for everyone who visits. It's been a wonderful journey, and I look forward to seeing where it goes from here.