Tag Archives: halloween

Photographs: Urban/Street

Pumpkin Universe

Image Leave a comment
Pumpkin Universe
What was left of a pumpkin on the day after Halloween.

Pumpkin Universe. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

What was left of a pumpkin on the day after Halloween.

This is another in the “orange series” of photographs that I made in October as part of a seasonal challenge issued by a group of fellow photographers — namely to go out and make photographs of orange things. I’ve written about this in other posts, so I’ll keep the story somewhat short. I started with the obvious Halloween notion of photographing pumpkins, but then I decided to look for ways to photograph them somewhat differently — not jack-o-lanterns and not the common “fall bounty” images. So I headed out into the neighborhood looking for distorted and damaged subjects.

There’s a well-known quote about a photograph being what it is (a supposedly objective visual record) and what else it is (a rather wide field). It should be obvious that you can “see” a photograph in multiple ways — an image of the literal thing, a suggestion of something else that it isn’t, and so on. While this photograph obviously depicts a fairly ordinary thing, I enjoy looking at it as something different from that.

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 | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.

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

Photographs: Urban/Street

Morning After

Image 2 Comments
Morning After
Sad pumpkin, the day after Halloween.

Morning After. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Sad pumpkin, the day after Halloween.

And you thought we’d get through this season without me sharing a pumpkin picture. No such luck! A couple of weeks ago someone suggested making photographs of orange things. Pumpkins seemed kind of too obvious, but in the end I could not entirely resist. Mostly I kept my eyes open for anything that was orange — signs, paint, vehicles, lights — but somehow these gourds kept jumping into the frame. (If you have never tried it, going out and constraining your photography to a color or a shape or something similar is a great exercise.) One thing I learned from the process is that “orange” is much more nebulous concept than I had thought — the “edges” of this color bleed over into red, yellow, and brown.

This sad fellow was sitting at the edge of a driveway in a pile of leaves on the morning after Halloween. The expression seemed like the ultimate “meh” look to me. Finally, in case you are wondering… yes, there is still one more pumpkin photograph to come. I know you are thrilled!

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 | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.

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