MALL OF AMERICA ABSTRACT CONTINUUM

On our last trip to Minnesota we paid another visit to Mall of America.  I had some trouble finding novel subjects and found myself for the most part taking shots that could be considered abstracts.  Here, in descending order of abstraction, are some of the better shots.

These first are of a decorative fixture hanging from the ceiling above a section of open walkway.

Although the second shot somehow reminds me of a pipe organ, I like the first shot better.

The following is a shot of the wall behind the reception desk of a hotel associated with the mall.

I think the wall was made of aluminum panels fit together to create a three-dimensional effect.  I ramped up the contrast some to accentuate the pattern.

Following is a portion of a skylight above one the mall's open "corner" areas.  My father-in-law thought it reminded him of a tux, so I converted it into a black & white.

The architectural style of the mall can best be described as eclectic, including its main skylight areas.  Here are a couple of the other corner skylights (or at least a portion of them).

I pretty much nailed the symmetry in the above shot.

Although the prior shots were pretty much fully abstract, the above shot can be "deciphered" as a skylight shot because of the structures on the right side of the image.  And the following shots can be even more easily figured out.

This first is of bins of variously colored Lego pieces on a wall at the back of the mall's Lego store.

And here a display of high heel shoes that I turned into a black & white.

I might have preferred not to have the reflections off the horizontal shelves, but in general I liked this shot quite a bit.

Here is another storefront shot, this time of a trio of bright pink manikins.  

My favorite shot of the series, though, was not an abstract at all but a candid portrait of a couple that more or less asked me if I wanted to take their photo.  She was from the Twin Cities and he was from Somalia and they were a delight.

I really wasn't ready to take their photo when they first suggested it and I had the wrong settings for the shot.  The aperture was too narrow, which brought too much of the background into focus.  And the ISO wasn't high enough resulting in a shutter speed that was too slow.  I realized my error and reset the camera for this second shot to an aperture of f/4 and an ISO of 320, resulting in a fast enough shutter speed of 1/25 second.

John