Many photographers say that they don’t take pictures but make images.  This is very true in this day of digital imaging.  Indeed, with digital processing it seems as though the possibilities are endless to what one can create.  I am a huge fan of getting it right in-camera, which is one reason I still love shooting film.  That said, there are times when I feel an image is created by taking some creative liberties with it so as to make the image what the photographer had in mind.  This is definitely the case when it comes to making abstract images.

An example of this would be the photo here.  This photo was taken of the flowering portion of some dill weed that I had growing in my garden.  It was an okay image but in my head I saw something abstract that I wanted to create.  I therefore converted the image to monochrome, split toned it to give it some color, adjusted the contrast, and finally added a border.  This is the final image.

Purists would balk at this image as over-processed and nothing more than a product of filters and tweaks with computer programs.  Yet, the image took over 45 minutes to get just they I saw it in my head and in this regard I feel that it has become art.  You may not like it, you may like it, it really does not matter.  I think we should embrace the idea of taking creative license when creating images as that is what makes photography art whether straight out of the camera or digitally modified.

“Processed”
Nikon D600 with Nikkor 105 mm
Post-processed with Lightroom 5, Silver Efex Pro 2, and Exposure 6