Greetings to all! The third stage of the competition has been completed and it remains to sum up: there were few abstract things in the photos of the participants and the choice of works for prizes turned out to be difficult for me. Two applications out of ten did not contain any attempts to approach the abstract at all. That's how we all solve this topic differently for ourselves. The right words from the author @weisser-rabe :

...In the past two rounds I found it particularly exciting that a precise demarcation of abstract photography is not so easy or perhaps not possible at all...

Everything is so, in the classification of this genre and in its evaluation, everything is quite subjective and it turns out that I take the liberty to decide which of your works belongs to abstraction and which does not, to decide this only based on my knowledge and my own experience. Is this acceptable? After all, I can also be mistaken in something, trusting my feelings. But there is nowhere to go and I need to go to the end, since I decided to go on this path.

10 participants submitted 40 photos to the contest and I had to make my choice of winners. For myself, I determined that out of this impressive number, thirty photos are not even approximately abstract. Somewhere there is not even an attempt to achieve a result. Perhaps the authors have not yet penetrated the topic enough. I have to choose from ten photos, among which a very small part corresponds to a specific type.

The competition was attended by:

author	competitive publication
@weisser-rabe	https://steemit.com/hive-185836/@weisser-rabe/qt6vs-abstract-photography-contest-abstrakte-fotografie-wettbewerb
@ty-ty	https://steemit.com/hive-185836/@ty-ty/abstract-photography-contest-stage-3
@penyaircyber	https://steemit.com/hive-185836/@penyaircyber/abstract-photo-contest-3-by-penyaircyber-or-50-wox-helpfund
@bambuka	https://steemit.com/hive-185836/@bambuka/abstract-photography-contest-wox-colors-and-lines
@rut-ru	https://steemit.com/hive-185836/@rut-ru/abstract-photography-stage-3
@joslud	https://steemit.com/hive-185836/@joslud/inversion-de-color-y-recorte-en-fotografia-abstracta-es-en
@raah	https://steemit.com/hive-185836/@raah/abstract-photography-contest-3-abstract-expressionism-by-raah
@silviadiez	https://steemit.com/hive-185836/@silviadiez/my-abstract-photography-for-the-contest-stage-3
@austriadventure	https://steemit.com/hive-185836/@austriadventure/abstract-photography-contest-abstrakte-fotografie-wettbewerb-community-world-of-xpilar-stufe-3
@bechibenner	Unable to copy address

And that's what happened this time:

The first place

today is taken by the photo of the author: @ty-ty

I liked the contest post in general. All the author's arguments speak about understanding the essence of the problem and offer working versions of its solution. I'll give you a small quote, and you can get acquainted with the rest in the post.

No matter what you see or not, what you recognize or not, so reads my invitation, this has no need to be justified – just take the photo’s own reality without any junction to the real world outside the picture. Let’s try to do so, as if it was no photo but only an object of it’s own presence.

The second place

is taken by the author's photo: @rut-ru and @silviadiez

@silviadiez

Absolutely nothing needs to be said about these two works. They are very different, but their impact on the viewer is the same: gradual dissolution in space.

The third place

is occupied by the works of the authors: @penyaircyber, @austriadventure and @bambuka

Making an abstract photo is not an easy thing. maybe we make edits after taking photos and seeing the results, but I don't really like editing photos, especially using software. I prefer photos as they are, the original from the photo shoot, without having to edit.

An amazing discrepancy in our perception: the author claims that his works are not an abstraction, and I see in one of them a clear potential. I also don't like to apply processing to my photos, but elementary is still often required if you can't find the right compositional solution when shooting.

In this case, it is enough to correct the orientation along the horizon line and crop the frame a little. And that's it. Now I see it as an absolutely abstract photograph.

After you have straightened the horizon, you can experiment with cropping further, until one element remains. And all this will be abstract, without losing the main thing - it remains a photograph.

Without a correct, well-calibrated composition, no photo can turn out to be abstract. Composition is the main thing.
In my examples, too, not everything is perfect, but the original did not allow otherwise, and in order to fix everything, I will have to resort to retouching or drawing in the editor, which I really don't like to do, but sometimes I can't do without it.

@austriadventure

Looking through the numerous photos sent by the participant, I was surprised by their complete inconsistency with the theme of the contest, and suddenly, at the end of the post, this frame caught my attention, and I forgot about everything for a while.

Realizing that it was almost unbelievable, I couldn't take my eyes off him for a long time. And this means that there is definitely an abstract potential in photography. It remains to bring it to completion, to give the image aesthetics.

In this case, the vignetting of the frame helped, which hid distracting elements at the edges. Then I added a central focus with blurring at the edges and got quite satisfactory examples of abstract examples without complete loss of recognition of objects. You just don't think about their nature here, attention is held by the center, provided by their successful location and the play of their forms.

That's how it happens: you find where you don't wait, and where you wait, you don't find.

@bambuka

Bamboo did a good job, but what he was betting on didn't work for me at all. I chose only this job. Pleasant things happen in the frame: the red element in the center holds attention, and the rest somehow moves around it, but does not distract, but relaxes and provides rest. Pleasant rhythms, pleasant coloristic relationships. A lot of details, but they all interact harmoniously with each other. Similar to a musical composition.
Now I'm going to send prizes and write an announcement of the continuation of the contest.

I thank all the participants who wrote wonderful, sincere texts and demonstrated their understanding of this difficult genre and their experiences in comprehending it. Everything will work out sooner or later for everyone who is systematically moving forward and I wish this to everyone.

I also study with you and it turns out that we help each other in this competition.

The continuation of the competition will not take place today. I'm taking a short break and will inform you about the beginning of the fourth stage in the near future additionally.

Prizes have been sent

100% SP (and manual translation to SP)

.............................................