Abstract Atlanta

It wasn’t just the wonderful gardens that drew me to Atlanta a few weeks ago. While I was in Atlanta, I attended Art Wolfe’s Abstract Atlanta workshop. I had an incredible time at the workshop. During the lectures, we looked at various elements of abstract art and the work of many abstract expressionist painters – and considered how we could incoporate these ideas into our photographs. And then we headed out to photograph.

The first place we visited was Old Car City in White, Georgia. Imagine visiting a place with 4500 old cars hidden on  6 miles of trails with the assignment of creating abstract photographs that someone looking at them wouldn’t know they were a photograph of a car!

Here are a few of my photos from Old Car City.

 

 

 

And then we headed to the Atlanta Prison Farm to photograph a graffiti-covered partially-burned abandoned prison. It’s the first time I’ve ever been on a photo shoot that required a police escort to visit the site, and where I could here the local S.W.A.T. team practicing in the distance. I never knew I could spend an afternoon fascinated by patterns, textures, lines and colors that I found in overlapping layers of chipping paint and rust!

Here are a few of my photos from the Atlanta Prison Farm

 

 

 

As you can see, Art Wolfe took us to only the best locations for this type of photography!

In some ways, this was one of the most photographically challenging workshops I have ever attended. I was photographing subjects way outside of my comfort zone, in places i could not have imagined photographing. And I am so glad I went. I’m not sure if I’ll do much more photographing in abandoned places – but I can see how I’ll be thinking about the concepts I learned as I’m photographing flowers and landscapes!