My “imaginary landscape” photographs are based on actual photographs of landscape subjects that are modified and re-purposed in ways that hake to attempt at literal portrayal of actual landscapes. In these images I take the landscape-based materials and explore what else they can be.
Continue reading Imaginary Landscape — Blue Sand
Recently I again became interested in idea of “imaginary landscapes.” I made a series of photographic images that are derived from elements of actual landscapes I have visited, but which are modified in various ways to alter their appearance. They retain some landscape-like qualities, but they do not correspond to real landscapes.
Continue reading Imaginary Landscape — Fractal Veins
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.
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.