Thematic Photographic 80: "Abstract" v.1.0 Accidental Abstract

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"Noire... In Color!"
Wake Forest, NC - February 2009 (Click to embiggen)

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This week's Thematic Photographic is exploring the abstract. Normally, that's the name I give to shots I screwed up but like anyway. Which is typically followed by, "It's art, get over it." This opening salvo in the world of abstraction is just such a shot. Occasionally I have a brain fart and forget to check my exposure settings. Either that or I forget that I'm shooting manual exposure (especially if I'm shooting in full daylight which is where I'm most likely to just let the camera do the thinking). On this grim, dismal fine February afternoon when I spotted this flock of Turkey Vultures perched on Wake Forest's water tower. I couldn't tell at first what they were, just that they must be pretty big if I could see them from two blocks away and there were a bunch of them. Naturally, this was a photo I had to have, so I quick hopped out of the truck and commenced firing. Without checking my exposure. And since these were among the first shots I'd taken that day I couldn't work out why the light looked so flat. It took several more shots before I noticed the meter was blinking madly at me to inform me that I was grossly overexposed, and by this time I'd moved on to the next target of opportunity. But the results were intriguing even if they were technically ahem flawed. had these been a different type of bird that might not have been the case. (Although I suppose large crows or ravens would have worked nicely.) But with the white water tower blended into the gray background of the overcast sky, only the darkest parts of the shot have any definition. I probably could have duplicated this effect in Photoshop if I'd thought of it (in fact there may be a filter specifically for it) but my hand to God, I didn't. This is more or less straight from the camera, albeit recurved slightly to gain some contrast.

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