01 ABSTRACTION 5 | Archistract: Richard J Daley Center, Chicago 1965 – Cor-Ten steel structure
I first visited family in the USA in 1999 using elderly film camera gear to record my travels. Then, my past creativity had explored several media including hand built ceramics, abstract painting and silver jewellery with photography as a simple research and record activity. In 2000 I used some photographs of the Thomson Center in Chicago to make a collection of abstract paintings using CHICAGO ARCHISTRACT (plus a series number) as a common title for all of them: ARCHISTRACT derived from ARCHItectural and abSTRACTion. (See IMAGE 01 in ABSTRACTION 1 ARCHISTRACTS
02 ABSTRACTION 5 | Richard J Daley center: Chicago city offices and law courts
ARCHISTRACT is now in increasingly common use in certain aspects of architectural photography and definitions are available online. That American visit sparked an interest in photography beyond factual record and led to an early 5mb digital camera and this website with its somewhat varied content and style. I don’t subscribe to any particular photographic category, preferring “images” as a general description to include activity in any medium. 
03 ABSTRACTION 5 | Richard J Daley Center, Chicago
The CHICAGO 5 gallery holds three photographs of the Daley Center from a larger number including close up views of the shape, pattern, texture, colour etc. of the structural steel on the outside of this 31 storey building. I was struck by the myriad variations in the colour tones of the surface rust, the patterns created by running water and the visual changes wrought by the shifting daylight focus. They all form the basis of this image trio in a style perhaps influenced by a very long fascination with abstract painting. The earlier ABSTRACTION 1 to 4 galleries contain images derived from architecture and other sources which attracted attention.
04 ABSTRACTION 5 | Vancouver archistract: PriceWaterhouseCoopers Place
Staying in Seattle offered chances to visit Vancouver just 120 miles distant. AMTRAK tilting trains were preferred over car even though speed restrictions offered leisurely schedules more appropriate to the long gone steam era. I’d liked to have spent more time there wielding a camera and just walking around. The Museum of Anthropology was a great highlight for both the building and its visually exciting contents. The camera produced a very green image of this building that I enhanced in a crop from the original
05 ABSTRACTION 5 | Vancouver: Commerce Place
IMAGE 18 in the ABSTRACTION 1 gallery is a broader and more wildly coloured interpretation of this building. My archistract interpretations are more akin to painting/printmaking rather than photography: high contrast black and white seems preferable to archistract photographers. My first contacts with photography were as a schoolboy with a basic box camera using120 film processed by the local one man high street photography studio shop. I still like that square black and white format I’ve used in the adjacent CHICAGO 10 gallery and others.
06 ABSTRACTION 5 | Vancouver: Commerce Place
IMAGES 04 and 05 are quite close to the original photographs with some enhanced colour and texture. This one has been explored in several versions of which this is my preference. I picked up the base blues of the camera view and worked it into more sombre shades. Serendipity rather than controlled design development can lead to unforeseen outcomes.
07 ABSTRACTION 5 | Chicago Archistract: Blue Cross Building reflections
The Lake Shore Park facade of the Blue Cross Shield Tower reflects the dual-blue chessboard glazing of the triangular plan-form Swissotel and the undulating balcony edges of the nearby Aqua building. It’s a reconstruction of the original image cut and rotated to create a symmetrical design. 
08 ABSTRACTION 5 | Chicago: Blue Cross building
This version concentrates on the undulating reflections of the Aqua Building balcony edges, mirrored horizontal symmetry and saturated blue tones.
09 ABSTRACTION 5 | Seattle Archistract: Waterfront architecture 1
The Pacific Northwest of the USA is a fine area to explore. The landscapes are often spectacular and the sometimes close relationship of mountain range and Pacific shoreline offers great contrasts. Driving Highway 101 above the beaches and headlands of the Oregon coast is a memorable experience I recorded on film pre-digital. Seattle is an attractive city with lively visual arts and many bookshops. What more could I want? This and the next image derive from a view of its architectural panorama shot from a Bremerton ferry.
10 ABSTRACTION 5 | Seattle: Waterfront architecture 2
Seattle is a hilly city rising from the shoreline and dates from the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Sailing into it presents an architectural wall behind a panorama of quayside activity. This image pair looks at a fragment of that building façade and its possibilities in shape, pattern and colour.
11 ABSTRACTION 5 | Newcastle Archistract: steel girder frames and scaffolding
In Newcastle and closer to home, this and the next image came from photographs of the white painted steelwork of a building in an early construction phase and its related scaffolding. 
12 ABSTRACTION 5 | Newcastle building steels and scaffolding
In this version I wanted to introduce more but quiet colour and richer detail. Formal and informal repetition of details of shape and form appealed. This now completed building is one of a large number built as student accommodation for the Newcastle University and the Northumbrian University which offer strong architecture, fine art and multi-design faculties with galleries and exhibitions open to everyone.
13 ABSTRACTION 5 | Edinburgh Archistract: the Scottish Parliament Building
The Scottish Parliament Building was completed in 2004 to designs by Eric Miralles and RMSM following an international competition. A gallery further into the website list is devoted to it. It’s a visually interesting building adding a new architectural dimension in Edinburgh’s cityscape. The debating chamber within is, I think, open to visitors when Parliament is in recess: as a piece of design, engineering and craftsmanship it well rewards a walk through the Old Town down the Royal Mile from the castle. 
14 ABSTRACTION 5 | Seattle Archistract: Seattle Central Library structure and glazing
This and the next couple of images derive from photographs of Seattle Central Library designed by Rem Koolhaus and OMA and completed in 2004. A few images of it are posted in the SEATTLE ARCHITECTURE 4 gallery. The Library occupies a whole City block and its angular sculptural form and relatively low height is in high contrast to the conventional neighbouring towers. 
15 ABSTRACTION 5 | Seattle Central Library glazing grid metal and glass
This one layers images of the interior and the glazing grid and adds created colour. 
16 ABSTRACTION 5 | Seattle Central Library escalator
Inside the Library a long escalator rises through the building. Finished in a sharp yellow with black detailing it’s a striking feature set into contrasting interior spaces. Natural light floods the larger voids and I found it an exciting place to explore and a comfortable place in which to read. This image was based on a photograph looking upwards on the escalator. In working it I kept close to the original yellow whilst aiming to echo the moving step forms. 
17 ABSTRACTION 5 | Chicago Archistract: the James R.Thompson Center
Like the preceding Seattle Central library building the Thompson Center fills a whole city block in the Loop district. Similar in a low height the sloping curve of the Clark and Randolph Streets façade contrasts with the sharp angularity of the other and opens up sidewalk space. Designed in Postmodern style by Helmut Jahn it was completed in 1985 to house the Illinois State Government offices. Its vast atrium has lifts and stairways linking its 17 floors, all illuminated particularly by a circular skylight and extensive glazing above the street entrance. 
18 ABSTRACTION 5 | Chicago: the James R. Thompson Center
Since 2015 there have been moves to sell the building for possible private demolition and redevelopment. Some proposals include one with a 1,700 foot tower which would be the highest in the City. This pair of images began as photographs of small areas of structure and glazing within the atrium. The colours have been modified and the underlying shapes and textures stylised.
