The modest abstractures below were made whilst walking along the coastal rocks west of Dep's Beach with Maya on a  late  afternoon  poodlewalk.They are  part of a series  (the blog posts are now a notebook) as the photos  do not typically reward attention as particulars, but rather as members of a group or a series of  photographic abstractions.

I am struggling to find material on this form of abstraction understood as imagery that has been ‘abstracted’ from nature. In the visual arts abstraction is understood in modernist terms--which presupposed the specificity of the arts ( painting,  sculpture etc) and their purity. Abstraction in modernism is the divergence from representation, figuration and narrative.  Whilst abstraction in painting stood for a  purely autonomous, autotelic art and a universally legible language, photographic abstraction is usually seen as decoration -- a splash of colour and cheap profundity for the boardroom or bedroom. 

That much is well known. The difficulty I'm encountering is going beyond this 20th century art history to rethink photographic abstraction in the 21st century. The puzzle is: what is abstraction’s contemporary artistic meaning and significance beyond rejecting realism and the parochialism of the figure/ground distinction or returning to  or rescuing abstraction from its obsolesence, as the   familiar, wholesome, and spiritually nourishing in reaction to the Global Financial Crisis. 

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The abstraction  below was made early one morning whilst I walking amongst the coastal rocks with Kayla.    The bitterly cold winds had dropped, the seas  had become  much calmer, and the broken cloud cover  promised some early morning sunshine. It was a good morning for walking along the coast.  

These moments inbetween the storm conditions of winter allowed Kayla and myself  to  leisurely wander amongst the rocks on an early morning poodlewalk. 

This  abstraction was made on a morning poodlewalk with Kayla along the coastal rocks between  Petrel Cove and  Kings Beach in Waitpinga: 

 It was  made handheld with a digital camera (a Sony a7R 111) in the low light of the early morning. Convenience is a key as this this  is one of those locations  where it would be very difficult  to use a film camera on a tripod.  

Made on an early morning  poodlewalk with Kayla:

It was low tide so access to these distorted granite rock forms  was possible.   

It was raining and the granite was wet

Made on a late afternoon   poodlewalk with Kayla and Maleko

 One stormy morning along the coast:

The seas were very rough.