I think many new photographers would like to try taking some abstracts but dont "see" them when shooting. Here is one of my more successful pair of abstracts and how they came about to promote some abstract shooting and (hopefully) posting in M,A&B. This is more a pre/post thought process than editing one.
Check out the series from the bottom up.
Initial photo (bottom) is of a portion of the NJ Vietnam Memorial. It is completely round and made of polished marble. In the center is a brick courtyard. I was shooting this for a NJ Magazine cover contest when I noticed the pattern in the reflection at the base of the wall.
I got low and leaned the camera against the wall in order to get as much of the repetition as possible. (second to last).
I converted to black and white, pushed up the contrast and applied a blue filter to see if there was really something cool in here. There was so I cropped out the final two. (which is an issue when you 'find' an abstract in another photo as sometimes when you crop it out, the image is small. whenever possible I do try a reshoot the abstract alone rather than pull it from the original photo in which it was found.)
Moral of the story .... there are abstracts everywhere!
Thanks for the information Ruth. I agree with your abstract comment (or rather comment on abstracts).
I feel we too often capture what we see rather than looking from many angles to try and find beauty that might be otherwise overlooked. This is a good reminder that we should all be willing to search for that which is not obvious.