This is an opportunistic photograph, made at a moment when photography is not typically my priority. We were staying in Stirling, Scotland for a few days after our Great Glen Way walk, and it turned out that breakfast was included with our room. So instead of heading out to hunt for coffee and breakfast, we just walked down that hallway, took the elevator down a floor, and walked into the dining room. And there on the window sill next to our table was this eye-catching lamp, posing against the window lit by morning light, with the blue sky beyond.
“So,” you may ask,” you say you weren’t thinking about photographing. But you had your camera with you? At breakfast?” Well, not exactly. This is an iPhone photograph. (I’ll bet that you didn’t realize that until now, right?) It turns out that sometimes the iPhone can be used to make things other than selfies. For the photographers out there, I did use the iPhone’s raw mode so that I’d have a bit more latitude in post — as you can imagine, the dynamic range in this scene was pretty large!
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.
Blog | About | Instagram | Flickr | Facebook | Threads | Post | Email
Links: Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Info.
Scroll down to share comments or questions. (Click post title first if viewing on the home page.)
All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
I knew it the nano-second I saw it that it was an iPhone picture. That cuz I have been using the iPhone for picture making almost exclusively for the past 3-4 years. And, while I don’t use the 0.5 lens a lot, to my eye, it does have a “signature” look to it.
Re; not “thinking about photography”: iMo, that’s when the best pictures are made…just respond to what you see instead of looking for something to see. The iPhone is perfect for that cuz it is most always with you and it’s ready to go.
FYI, for what it’s worth, to my eye and sensitivities,, this is best phot you have published since I discovered this site. That’s cuz it seems to be less about what it depicts and more about the form you have created.
Mark,
Glad to hear you like this photograph. Sometimes I think that some of my viewers wonder about images like this, especially if they are more familiar with my landscape work. I happen to like it a lot, partly for what it looks like and partly for how it came about.
Sometimes the “not thinking” about photography is more a matter of thinking unconsciously — I think that my visual sense is always attuned to my surroundings, working intuitively, even when I’m not specifically intending to photograph. And sometimes I’m surprised by what turns up in those moments.
Dan