Tag Archives: distorted

Photographs: Abstract, Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Urban/Street

Four Frames

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Four Frames
Reflections, San Francisco

Four Frames. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.

Reflections, San Francisco

For me, one result of carrying a camera around is that I often realize that things we barely notice often turn out to be unbelievably strange. Urban buildings can take on an entirely different look if you start to pay attention to the reflections in their windows — the abstract patterns of shapes and colors, the hallucinogenic distortions, and the bizarre juxtapositions. This is yet another example of seeing things for “what else they are.”

I think that writing too much about the background of this photo risks ruining its effect — so I won’t. I will say that it contains quite a few of the “juxtapositions” I mentioned above. Refusing to give in to temptation, that’s all I’m going to say!

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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Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Water Plants

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Water Plants
Water plants and their reflections on a foggy late-winter day in California’s Central Valley.

Water Plants. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Water plants and their reflections on a foggy late-winter day in California’s Central Valley.

During the first week of December I finally made my first trip of the season to my favorite bird photography area in Central California. In autumn, all up and down the state, we start to see the arrival of the winter migratory birds, and I’ve become addicted to photographing them and the landscapes in which they appear. I would have gone a bit earlier this year, but I was waiting for the right combination of fog and driving conditions. Yes, I WANT fog. But, no, I don’t want it so thick that dangerous driving conditions are an impediment.

From my perspective, the best bird photograph days in these places start with fog that begins to thin by mid- to late-morning, allowing some filtered, directional light to appear. This was not that kind of day. It ended up being uniformly gray. There were interesting birds around, but not in the numbers that we’ll likely see later. For these and other reasons, by mid-morning I turned my attention mostly away from the birds and towards the landscape. During the early season, as the shallow ponds begin to refill, there is more of a feeling of autumn than winter, and lots of interesting plants still stand in the water. The plants in this picture might be of limited interest — they certainly are not prominent landscape features — but their reflections caught my attention.

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

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

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Building, Reflections

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Building, Reflections
Portions of downtown San Francisco reflected in the windows of a tall building

Building, Reflections. San Francisco, California. February 3, 3017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Portions of downtown San Francisco reflected in the windows of a tall building

This is an urban landscape photograph — while the subject is quite different from natural landscapes, I think of it is ways that are at least partially similar. Superficially, the urban world of towers and canyons presents some possibilities that are related to the mountains and valleys that I photograph in the non-urban world; I think about light and form in similar ways; and the ways I view each type of landscape can’t help but inform how I view the other.

It was only a few years ago when I understood something that intrigues me about glass-covered buildings like this one. (Yes, I’m slow sometimes…) We feel like we are looking at a building in a photograph like this, but a good part of what we actually see is not the building at all, but its form made visible by means of reflections of its surroundings, including other buildings and the sky. Here some skeletal forms help define its shape, perhaps more so than with some other buildings, but between those elements the windows themselves mostly reflect things that are not the building itself

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 and Amazon.
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Photographs: United Kingdom, Photographs: Urban/Street, Photographs: Utah

Walking Man, Mirrored Wall

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Walking Man, Mirrored Wall
A walking man and other people are reflected in a mirrored wall, London

Walking Man, Mirrored Wall. London, England. August 5, 2016. © Copyright 2016 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A walking man and other people are reflected in a mirrored wall, London

Here we have (yet another!) photograph of someone using a smart phone in the urban world, though here there are, I think, a few other elements that got my attention. I’m sure that I was paying attention to the continuous stream of people moving along this sidewalk, and I like to think that some sense of their motion comes through in the photograph. The mirrored wall that contains most of the subjects not only let me capture a “double” of the primary subject, but it also let me bring him forward from the reflected background of all the other people who are only visible in the mirrored image. You might also notice some interesting things related to color.

And there are some surprises. I read somewhere that one of the differences between painting and photography is that while the painter personally puts everything on the canvas (at least mostly) and therefore can know it fully, the photographer cannot possibly know every element of the scene. In fact it is common to only realize that the photograph contains unintentional elements after the fact. One of those is present here — look at the head of the man in his reflected image.

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 and Amazon.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn | Email

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