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.

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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.