The Hill Country Photography Club’s critique theme this month was Nature Abstracts. I kept putting off doing the assignment because I’m not familiar with abstract techniques and felt it was forcing me outside my photographic comfort zone.

I’ve tried to accurately represent the scene in most of the nature photography I’ve done. The thought of intentionally turning it into an abstraction just made me uncomfortable. Finally, a couple of weekends ago, I decided I needed to get it done. The technique I was going to use was to set a slow shutter speed and allow the image to blur as I moved during the exposure. I went for a hike looking for suitable subjects.

The first one is a different view of one of our native shrubs, agarita (Mahonia trifoliolata). We’ve got them all over the property. I like this image because it reminds me of a star field or a fireworks burst. I’m not sure if one could tell it was an agarita just from the image, so perhaps that’s abstract enough!

Agarita Starburst

I noticed some of the agaritas already have flower buds. The combination of rains and warm weather are tricking them into an early spring.

I took the second image right in our front yard. We have a several rose bushes in our home’s landscape and they are all blooming.

Rose Impressions

I liked the results of the nature abstract assignment and think I’ll do it again. One of the goals of my Master Naturalist work is to increase public awareness and appreciation of nature. I think producing nature abstracts might be one way to accomplish that.