Color Field Photography

Nikon Coolpix P1500

…Every once in a while this happens.


I have no idea how this happened, but it seems to happen quite frequently with the P5100, because its auto focus is so slow. It hunts, and by the time it’t ready to take the picture, you’ve either lost interest or the subject has passed on.

Apple iPhone 4S

For some reason, your camera is set incorrectly, and you take a picture and get something like this. You readjust your camera, and move on.

However, unlike a completely dark, motion-blurred or out-of-focus image, I can never seem to delete these things. More frequently than not, they have aesthetic qualities that I cannot ignore. So, inspired by the fine art category of the same name, I’m creating a new category for them in my library to best describe what they represent: Color Field Photography. Definitely a sub-category of Abstract Photography, but not Lo-fi Photography.

If given a camera, perhaps Mark Rothko would have produced something like this. In fact, the moment I saw this film image, his name was the first thing that came to mind:

Olympus Stylus Zoom 115 DLX

This image is simply the first frame scan from a Kodak Picture CD. The composition follows the rule of thirds. The colors are congruent (remember, black goes with anything). I couldn’t bring myself to trash it.

Even the D90 is not excluded from this club:

Nikon D90

This I was able to put in context; it too seems to be an autofocus mishap during some street shooting. But due to the D90’s advanced optics and sensor, it’s much sharper than the other two.

These “happy accidents” all beg the question, What if I tried to do this on purpose? How difficult could it be? 

Well, we’ll see. But first some ground rules. Only in the camera, and no post-processing whatsoever.

Let’s see if I can resist L*a*b* Color processing on these.