Brian Chapman & Anil Rao

I recently came back from the southern Washington coast which provided a good opportunity to work with long exposures and water.The first is a long exposure of a winter storm rolling in. The three stripes in the foreground are sets of crashing waves. This night image was taken at the edge of a parking lot with a large tree and a light behind it casting a shadow on the high tide. I normally like to include some static "anchor" in long exposures but as this doesn't have anything that wasn't in motion I consider it more toward the abstract end of the spectrum. As for me (you probably have not heard of me), photography is not my career although I spend much of my spare time working on it in some way or another. Although I shoot completely digital I don't really consider these "converted" images because in my mind they were monochromatic from the beginning. ~ Brian Chapman


I started ballroom dancing last February. Since then, I believe I have been spending more time and energy on this new pursuit than I do making photos. Recently, a good friend asked me if dancing has an effect – positive or negative – on my photography. I don’t remember consciously noticing any connection between the two activities and was therefore pleasantly surprised to find this photograph in my collection....Could my dancing have really played a role in the making of these images? ~ Anil Rao

publisher's comment: I have created a 2-for-the-price-of-one post with Brian and Anil because their submissions appeared nearly simultaneously and both relate to the recent topic of "abstracts", but, IMO, in very different ways.

Most of the recent discussion about "abstracts" has centered around photography that falls into my category of reality-based impressionism and Anil's photograph falls rather neatly into that description. Brian's photograph, on the other hand, has pretty much abandoned the notion of reality-based to create what can certainly be labeled an "abstract" in a more classic painterly sense, although, that shadow of the tree creates an interesting real/not real visual effect/affect - a we're-not-in-Kansas-anymore kind of thing. Please also note that Brian is a digital shooter who "sees" in BW before he photographs, not after).

And Anil - all I can say is, "Keep on 'dancing' "

See more of Brian Chapman's photography here and more of Anil Rao's here