Looking Up, Looking Down

The world looks a bit different depending on your viewpoint. In taking photographs I’ve always been encouraged to shoot from various angles as a slight change can substantially alter and perhaps improve the resulting photograph…. especially true when using a wide angle lens. And we know sometimes we should get down on our knees to take a photo, but then, for me, it seems to be getting harder to get back up again.

So for this challenge, I want to go for the extremes of Looking Up, and Looking Down, to show the effects of what you can capture at these angles and get a different perspective on our view of the world.

Looking up at buildings is a good place to start, whether it’s a skyscraper, a university spire or a local church. This angle grants you that worm’s eye view and exaggerates the height with those converging vertical lines to add a good deal of drama.

Looking up at bridges too, like this viaduct really helps me feel the immense size of the project, and appreciate the construction work involved in this great structure of chiselled sandstone and still supports a main railway line over a hundred years.

But then, lets switch and start Looking Down – down from the parapets of those many bridges.

Yes, you’ve noticed the swans again (I’m getting repetitive with swans). But there’s these rowers from the club on the River Clyde in Glasgow, and I’ve found that looking down on them from the bridge is the best way to photograph them and the patterns they make in the water.

Following that sports theme, I’ve picked some other action images taken with my lenses pointed upwards …or downwards.

Now, lets turn to nature, and where better to start than the autumn leaves we’ve been seeing here over the last few weeks. It’s nice to get yellow leaves contrasting with a brilliant blue sky. The second image is taken looking down from a bridge over the gorge at Chatelherault Country Park

Continuing with nature, I’m looking up to the birds and looking down towards the insect life

Now, where did I find a Bald-headed Eagle in Scotland. It’s real; it’s name is ‘Alaska’. It’s a captive bird; trained and flown for small audiences at a birds of prey park. Also, there’s a wild Red Kite and a female Common Blue butterfly – one of my favourites.

And then we can have a look at flowers from those extreme angles.

The first is a common wild plant here – Rose Bay Willow Herb – a very upright plant, about 4-5 feet high but when I look down upon the flower buds I get something different, maybe a bit abstract. Alternatively, the poppies in the second image were taken with the camera flat on the ground pointing upwards. I couldn’t see what I was getting but after several shots I was bound to get one image with a decent composition.

How am I going to finish this ramble about the ups and downs of photography. Well, I talked about extremes and what’s more diverse than shooting down from a bridge at a swimming penguin?…. and then shooting up in the sky at the Royal Air Force’s display team in action – the Red Arrows?

I feel honoured to be asked to guest host for Lens-Artists this week. I hope you enjoyed these images and I’m excited to see what images you bring to the challenge of “Looking Up, Looking Down”. Your interpretation doesn’t have to be quite as literal as I’ve presented. So, please join in the challenge; Remember the sky’s the limit – well in one direction anyway.
(Remember to include a ‘Lens-Artists’ tag on your post so we’ll catch your it in our Reader section.)

Many thanks to Anne of Slow Shutter Speed for hosting last week’s challenge – Anne asked us to ‘Fill the Frame’ – thanks also to all of you who sent in such a marvellous range of frame-filling responses. Next week’s challenge will be set by Patti, so please look in on her Pilotfish blog for a great set of images to give you inspiration.

Interested in knowing more about the Lens-Artists challenge? Click here for more information.