City of Angels: The gritty urban sprawl of Los Angeles transformed into breathtaking landscape shots by one gifted photographer

Downtown Los Angeles may not be the most obvious place to take stunning landscape photographs, but one artist has transformed the gritty urban sprawl of the city into a beautiful sight in his pictures.

Photographer Mitch Dobrowner said his goal for his ‘Urban’ series of black-and-white photographs was to show that human development – including the southern California city – is temporary.

‘If I could do a 100 year time-lapse of the city I’d see that everything we have is also just temporary,’ he writes on his blog.

‘We’d see that the landscape itself wouldn’t change but what mankind builds would rise and fall.... that we’re only temporary here. The land we think we own, we actually only borrow (for the time we are here).’

He said that this series of photographs stemmed from his first view of Los Angeles from the San Fernando Valley, looking from the Santa Monica mountains.

‘I thought it was one of the most beautiful landscapes I had ever seen. The spirit of that first sighting is all I’ve been trying to capture ever since,’ he writes.

Experience: Photographer Mitch Dobrowner said he once viewed Los Angeles from the Santa Monica Mountains and says he has been trying to capture that essence in every shot he's taken since

Morning has broken: This image, entitled 'Daybreak,' was taken in 2009

Mountain's majesty: This image of Los Angeles was taken in 2006

Cloudburst: Much of Dobrowner's work plays with light, shadow, and the landscape at hand

Pending storm: This image captures the beginnings of a rainbow as a stormcloud hovers ominously over the City of Angels

Playing with light: The photographer captured the beauty of nature and the complexity of modern American cities

Beauty: He manages to capture the vastness of the mountains and the detail of the clouds passing overhead

Skylight: This image was taken in 2007

Methodology: The photographer said he gains inspiration from legendary photographer Ansel Adams