Category Archives: Photographs: Imaginary Landscapes

Photographs: Abstract, Photographs: Imaginary Landscapes, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Morning Forest

Image 1 Comment
Morning Forest
“Morning Forest” — An “imaginary landscape” photograph of a foggy morning forest scene, using in-camera motion bur.

From time to time I experiment with ways to portray the landscape in a more abstract fashion. I often refer to these photographs as “imaginary landscapes.” While the line between “real” and “imaginary” can be pretty fuzzy in photography, these photographs make no pretense of portraying the objective facts of the scene. (To be clear, no photograph is fully objective, but I digress…)

In this case I used intentional (or perhaps unintentional — you decide) techniques to blur the details of the scene, leaving the biggest elements intact but leaving a lot to the imagination. The original scene is the edge of the forest next to a small lake on a foggy morning.

Leave a comment or question using the form. (If you are reading this on the home page, click the article title to see the full article and the comment form.

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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

Photographs: Imaginary Landscapes, Photographs: Nature

Imaginary Floral Landscape

Image 2 Comments
Imaginary Floral Landscape
“Imaginary Floral Landscape” — An imaginary floral lenscape of receeding spring petals.

This feels like a floral version of my “imaginary landscape” photographs, in which I push the interpretation of the image significantly, to the point that I feel it is best to acknowledge what is going on. (To many photographers and flower-lovers it is obvious that this is not a “what I saw” photograph, but more a “what I imagined” photo.) The starting point was a photograph I made using a macro lens and shooting across the top of a group of flowers.

The boundary between real and imaginary in photographs is much less obvious that some observers may realize. If you know what you are looking at, it is not a secret that photographs are usually the photographers interpretation of the subject, not a simple reproduction. To be honest, this is more or less a feature of photographs — they cannot really be full, objective records of things, and some element of interpretation figures in virtually all photographs.

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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.

G Dan Mitchell: Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email


All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Abstract, Photographs: Imaginary Landscapes

Imaginary Landscape: Desert Mountains (Blue)

Image Leave a comment
Imaginary Landscape: Desert Mountains (Blue)
“Imaginary Landscape: Desert Mountains (Blue)” — An imaginary landscape, based on a photograph of desert mountains.

I am sorry to disappoint, but there is no place on this planet that looks like this. This photograph depicts an imaginary scene, produced not by AI but by my own manipulation of a photograph of a desert mountain landscape, transforming it into a scene of impossible peaks and extremely deep valleys. (The source material is from Death Valley, but I doubt that you could locate it in the real world, even if you know the park quite well. Take that as a challenge, if you will. ;-) )

Still, there is something compelling about the image, I think. Perhaps these are the sorts of mountains and valleys we dream of but never quite find. (Some viewers may notice that this subject has appeared here twice. I previously produced a monochromatic version of the subject.)

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.

Photographs: Abstract, Photographs: Imaginary Landscapes

Imaginary Landscape: Desert Mountains

Image Leave a comment
Imaginary Landscape: Desert Mountains
“Imaginary Landscape: Desert Mountains” — An imaginary landscape, based on a photograph of desert mountains.

The words, “imaginary landscape” are used her to alert viewers to what they are (and are not) seeing. It would be lovely if you encountered an actual landscape that looked like this, but you won’t — this landscape is invented. I began with a “real” image of a range of desert mountains, and from there I deeply modified that original to produce the photographic fantasy that you see here.

The image grew out of something I wrote elsewhere about “honesty” in photographs. The subject is too big to fully deal with here, but one component was that it is troubling to me when photographers tacitly rely on the presumption that viewers will imagine the unbelievable to be real. I have no objections to morphing the “real” into fantastical things — but I am uneasy about relying on viewers’ misinterpretations of what they are seeing. This highly processed image was created to illustrate that idea.

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.