Erosion as Art

Erosion as Art – patterns on hulls of yachts, Antigua Slipway, English Harbour, Antigua

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Erosion as Art

I have been reading Rick Sammon’s book “Creative Visualization for Photographers”. This book is not a technique guide in the standard form. It is designed to help the photographer produce better images through ideas that may lead to better vision. Basically, the aim is to give you a better eye for an image and then post-processing it to elevate the result from a snapshot to a great image. Although I highly recommend you read this excellent book, this post is not a typical book review. This post explains how the book led me to create a new gallery of Abstract images that resulted from just one small section of the book.

Having noted in the book that most people photograph what they recognize, Rick goes on to tell the story of Minor White. Minor White used the term “pristine vision”. This he defined as photography without being influenced by our memory. To encourage his students to reach this goal he used to take them to an area on the Oregon Coast now known as Minor White’s Wall. Through long days he pushed his students to create compelling images of the shapes in the rock formations.

Erosion as Art – patterns on hulls of yachts, Antigua Slipway, English Harbour, Antigua

– Click on the image to enlarge or purchase –

Those of you who are frequent visitors to this site will know that I visit the island of Antigua regularly. One of my favorite subjects is Nelson’s Dockyard. For a different image, I like to go the Antigua Slipway which is on the opposite side of English Harbour. The Slipway has many yachts which are awaiting cleaning or needing repair. It was as I was looking at the hulls of the yachts, I remembered Rick Sammon’s story of Minor White. I decided I would try to use the patterns on the hulls to create some abstract images. All of the markings on the boats were created by some sort of erosion or other form of wear caused by water. I am not sure I achieved pristine vision but I rather like the resultant abstract images.

Not only did I have fun creating these images, it has provided me with an interesting new subject matter to look for during my photographic expeditions. In fact, I have already added some additional images to the Erosion as Art gallery. These images were from my existing library – until now I just did not have a suitable way of classifying them.