Abstraction in photography

 The installation by Ellen Carey of Polaroid images, without subjects and its ability to make the viewer think  and be aware of what is ignored in every other photo is really cool to me. What is being brought to awareness in the piece is only the chemical makeup, the main building block to the photo. As stated, “the processed quality of Polaroid images was revealed in all of its chemical complexity”. People smelt the chemical process of a photograph instead of just viewing it. Her ability to reduce photography in this way shows you exactly what abstraction is capable in that it opens your eyes to the normally un-perceived. Lavaida’s work with creating abstract pictures of actual every day things interest me as well because it reminded me of when you look at things through a kaleidoscope. You’re seeing the image yet it’s not recognizable through the thousands of geometric fragments it’s broken into. These two artists inspired me to take a digital image of mine and reduce it to its fundamental pixels (w/ additional effects) to bring to light the literal geometric building blocks of digital images.