Artwork by David Soltz

Seeing the Overlooked Through Abstract Photography

Essinova Artful Life Saturday Playshops Summer 2020 Dispatch 3 (Session 4 in review)

Published in
5 min readAug 14, 2020

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By Annette Courtney

Daniel Storch’s passion in abstract photography started when he noticed an interesting rock in a car park 10 years ago. He took a closeup photo on his phone, so he could play with it in PhotoShop once he got home to learn the software and teach his young son. That practice has continued ever since, and developed into his own art.

Today he still takes regular holiday photos, but always reserves time to spot the obscure for abstract potential.

Daniel’s philosophy is that “beauty is where you find it”, as Madonna enlightened us in her song. His art pays homage to Expressionism, with vibrant colors and intriguing details, patterns, lines, textures, and shapes, often in rhythm or motion.

His aim is to express ideas and emotions to trigger the viewers’ imagination through a sense of mystery. It has been his way to honor his emotional side, balancing an analytical career focussed on strategy and corporate development.

In the playshop, he asked us to use word association for some of the images that he has created.

At first we used literal words, such as tree, water and sun. He then suggested that we try expressing emotions rather than using nouns. It was amazing how differently each person saw an image. To me this showed that a person’s reaction to art is subjective. Daniel said that he finds this a good exercise because he has a theme or feeling about what he is trying to express in his images, and to see what reactions it evokes in other people is really invaluable.

Daniel dispeled a few myths about abstract photography:

1) Abstract photos don’t inspire the intellect.

2) They don’t express emotions.

3) They can’t tell a story or be metaphorical.

4) That rigorous composition is not important.

5) That you need to start with a beautiful photo.

To illustrate the last myth Daniel showed us a photo that he had taken of a road that had just been dug up for resurfacing. The lines had inspired him to stand in the road (dodging cars) and take a photo. After editing he produced a colourful picture worthy of the likes of Mark Rothko.

With a few creative prompts, he sent us off to take some photos around our house and garden using only our phone camera.

Off I went phone in hand, eager to take some awesome photos. I found a ball of string, a basket and the cat litter. Then I looked at the sole of my shoe, a really interesting pattern. I took a picture from the top of my terrarium — lots of shiny greens, perhaps not the most interesting editing candidate. Then I liked the look of the Hoover, the way the hose and flex were interacting with each other. My final photo was of the pattern on my sofa and throw that protects it from the cat fur. I just found the textures interesting. See, Daniel’s influence is already rubbing off on me. He then asked us to upload our favourite ones to the Facebook page.

After a brief discussion about them all, Daniel asked us to edit a couple. HOWEVER, we were only allowed to use the editing tools on our phones, such as cropping, changing orientation, color adjustments and other image manipulation. I didn’t realise my phone could do so much!

We uploaded our edited pictures next to the originals. What a difference!

After a discussion about these it was time to finish. One of the ladies in the group said that it had made “the ordinary become extraordinary”.

The session was both engrossing and engaging.

I am hooked.

Thank you to everyone who organised this playshop and to Daniel for his brilliant insight into the world of abstract photography.

Select artworks by playshop participants:

By R. Sanghvi (10) and M. Tsiorvas
By E. Smirnov-Otis and F. Matzdorf
By A. Courtney and A. McGee Johnson
By D. Soltz and M. Selvanathan
By K. Relf-Cañas and M. Thwaites
By R. Sen

Coming up next: Sessions #6, artistry in cooking, and food (waste) as art. Join us!

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Essinova Journal
Essinova Journal

Published in Essinova Journal

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BeiBei Song 宋贝贝
BeiBei Song 宋贝贝

Written by BeiBei Song 宋贝贝

#Innovation strategist. #Creativity agent. Executive educator & coach @StanfordBiz. #Art #science #tech fusionist & curator. Founder @Essinova.

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