Jai Daemion, Byron Bay Winter Beach Sunset (January theme: Abstract)

This image was a well-coloured but conventional image of people gathered on the rocks at Main Beach (Byron Bay) to watch the sunset. Post-processing was used to abstract the image - primarily by greatly increasing the saturation. This caused the sun-pixels to spill over, distorting its shape and creating 'rings' around which extended the distorted shape outward from the centre. At the same time, the foreground seemed to be split into more than one plane. All of this change was illusory. I was happy to accept the abstraction, and so worked a bit with exposure and composition before giving it a stroke (framing) and saving it. This turned out to be a very complex and 'painterly' image and I still see new elements in it each time I see it! Sometimes abstract image-making can be genuinely fun!

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.