URBAN ABSTRACTS

James Paterson shows you how to transform everyday street scenes into evocative art with simple skills

Urban environments can be a frenetic mass of contrasts: vibrant or mundane, lively or eerie, beautiful or drab. For a photographer, it's easy enough to capture how places like this look, but it's more of a challenge to convey how they feel. To create a sense of a place without the distractions of detail, we can turn to abstract techniques. Intentional blur, multiple exposures, unusual camera angles and digital mash-ups can all help us emphasise the emotion of the place, and create wall-worthy art that feels more in touch with the work of impressionist painters than it does with 'conventional' photographic techniques.

In this project we'll look at a range of techniques that you can try out on the streets. Camera skills are often about eliminating shake, keeping scenes in focus and preventing wonky horizons, but here we'll throw all that out the window. Instead, we'll celebrate the blur and the softness. When you think about it, streets and buildings are these rather simple geometric shapes and lines, dotted with people and lights. As such, these subjects are ripe for an abstract treatment, as we can reduce the elements down to blurry strokes of colour, and impressions of people and flowing shapes, while still retaining the spirit of the scene.

You don't need any special kit or lenses for this in fact, even the cheapest lens will produce results just as good as premium optics. What's more, you can try this in all conditions sunny, overcast, rainy, even at night.

1 CAMERA MOTION

Intentional camera movement can transform scenes into streaks of blur while still retaining an impression of the place. Move the camera up, down, left, right, or swivel it during the exposure. There's real skill in doing so; for a smooth motion, it helps to press the camera against your forehead or use a tripod.

2 SLOW SHUTTER SPEED