Michael Lew-Smith

Title: Accidental Abstracts

About the Photo:

Though it is sometimes difficult to tell, all of these photographs occur on weathered, abandoned, misused and forgotten cars, trucks and tractors. As a photographer, my eye seems to be drawn closer and closer to my subjects. In these cases, close enough that the images become abstractions. Taking the images out of context gives them a different life than they had before (sitting, for example, on the front quarter-panel of an old International fire truck). In the process of taking these photographs, I have become fascinated by the intricate designs and textures that are created by the weathering of paint and by the inadvertent art that can be extracted from forgotten junk. Though digital photographs, very little manipulation was done in the digital darkroom; the images are largely “accurate” representations of the scenes encountered.