Evening Dunes. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Abstract interpretation of sand dunes in evening light.
For this photograph I decided to move further from supposed reality than usual. In my view, no photograph actually portrays “objective reality” accurately. That’s a good thing, and I prefer subjective reality in photographs. In other words, I’m interested not so much in what the photograph claims to tell us about the reality of the subject as I am interested in what the photographer wants us to find in the subject.
I was in sand dunes in the evening after the sun had dropped beyond mountains far to the west, leaving very colorful light in the clouds, light that suffused the landscape with color while softening the details. Here I was interested in the large patterns of light and dark and the smaller patterns made by wind on the surface of the dunes. The final interpretation of the colors reflects the bluish tones of evening light and the effect of the brightly colored sky, though here I modified the colors in ways that seemed to make some sense for this image.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
Thanks, Roger. I like your notion that such photographs let the viewer’s mind wander. I tend to agree that this is the case with photographs that aren’t tied to a specific, recognizable subject, and which do have strong color and form connections.
Dan
Great image. I love shots like this. More and more they are becoming my favorite type of images. Abstracts, patterns, lines etc. They let the viewer’s mind wander, and sometimes even wonder what exactly they’re looking at.