I am excited to announce that my abstract photo series "Prairie Kaleidoscope" received an honorable mention in the 2026 International Photography Awards (IPA), one of the world's premier photo competitions. It is an incredible achievement and something I am extremely proud of.

IPA 2026: Greta Starrett

Anyone who knows me knows photography is one of my great passions in life. It is one of the primary reasons I go anywhere and do anything. While many genres of photography interest me, abstract photography captures my imagination like few other categories because it exists in a space where few rules limit its potential. I love playing with color, movement, and mood. Nature, in particular, is my muse, and it is here that I most enjoy taking the ordinary and making it extraordinary—taking what is already beautiful and making it otherworldly.

In high school, I took four years of photography where I dabbled in many different forms of the art: learning to dodge and burn in the dark room; mastering twin lens reflex cameras; experimenting with digital photography and Photoshop; and getting creative with the Lensbaby. While by no means an exhaustive list of the skills I learned, I seemed to have a knack for the abstract.

During my senior year, my photography teacher nominated an abstract print of mine to be professionally framed and displayed in an upscale gallery in Evanston, Illinois, just north of Chicago. While at the gallery opening, a curator for the Art Institute of Chicago commented positively on my photograph. That moment has always stuck with me and is a point of pride.

Lensbaby lenses are some of my favorite means to shoot abstract photography. Here are only a few of the abstract images I've worked on in recent months shot with the different Lensbaby lenses I own:

Lensbaby Sweet 50 "Merry Black-Eyed Susans Go Round"

Lensbaby Sweet 35 "Peeking Leaves"

Lensbaby Spark  "Melting Sky"