Reflection Deception. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.
The glass surface of a New York building reflects and distorts its surroundings.
Scenes like this are, of course, common in big urban centers that are filled with tall, modern buildings. This one comes from Manhattan. One striking difference between many new buildings and those from a much earlier era is that today the surfaces are often nearly 100% windows and, as such, the buildings are extremely reflective. A few years ago it occurred to me how odd it is that what we see when we look at these buildings today is mostly not the buildings at all. The building is essentially invisible beyond the slender outlines of frames between windows. The “surface” we see is composed of other things — sky, clouds, other buildings — that are distorted by the qualities of the reflective surface. (I have an idea for a photo project: Remove all of the reflective surfaces from images of these buildings, leaving only the minimal structural elements that are actually visible.)
These buildings are one reason that I often refer to these places and photographs of them as “urban landscapes. There is a continuum in landscape photography. At one end lies subjects that are entirely “natural” — or at least seem to be so. Somewhere in between we enter the realm of historic landscape paintings, in which it was common to include the human presence. Continue along that trajectory far enough, and it is possible to see cities as being just a different sort of landscape, and that way of seeing leads to different ways of photographing them.
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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