Looking for the Smaller Scene

Sometimes the most mundane urban landscapes hold the potential for the creation of interesting “urban abstracts.” I often look for abstract images that may say more about a place and try to simplify a larger, more complex scene by focusing on a small part of it. The resulting photograph can tell more of a story than one that includes the entire scene.

This weekend I explored the beautiful parking garage of the conference centre in Nanaimo during a break in an Island Photography Workshops event. I was initially attracted to the reflection of light in the concrete floor and the painted arrows and lines that I noticed on my way out for lunch and decided to photograph the arcade on my return.

A Creative Exercise

It can be a challenging and creative exercise to make an image in a place that is not naturally considered a place of beauty. How to choose a subject? I started to work with the huge variety of tire marks and streaks of black on the pavement. Lines of all different sizes and textures led in different directions. Strange stains marked the grey cement. Cracks and blotches combined with the streaks and metal drains. The sheer number of different compositions was overwhelming.

I used an iPhone to capture several urban abstracts—I think of them as rough sketches—and quickly edited the images with the Snapseed app. I like the results and think that this is a location well worth another visit. There are more stories to be discovered here, more marks to be read.