Figure 1 – Windmill blades, Springfield, OH. (c) DE Wolf 2015.

Last weekend I was in Springfield and Columbus, Ohio.  I took the image of Figure 1 at the at the Clark County Heritage Center in Springfield. As an abstract it begs the question: What is it? The features of the photograph to make it abstract are straight forward: high grain, tight close up, a slightly awkward and puzzling perspective, and a concentration on the shadows. It is an object that was once familiar in the fields of the American Midwest – indeed one which still can be found.

I like to take abstracts. The reason is that they evoke an innate sense of the geometric – something coded deeply in our psyche. Perhaps this appeals to a sense of the spiritual and the objects seem to become almost animated. In a way abstract art is contradictory.  It contradicts the fundamental definition of the word “abstract” as something existing in thought or as an idea but not having a physical or concrete existence.

It might seem to be a work by Picasso or the like.  But it is in fact a pair of windmill blades mounted on a wall.

Canon T2i with EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 70 mm, ISO 6400, Aperture Priority AE mode, 1/30 th sec at f/6.3 with no exposure compensation.