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Another Point of View

When you visit a major tourist attraction along with hundreds of other tourists, how do you come away with photographs that are a little bit different? The answer is simple: Use your feet!

At Uluru (aka Ayers Rock) deep in the red desert in the very center of Australia everyone heads out for sunset. Over a period of about half an hour as the setting sun lights up the rock from directly behind your back, the colors of Uluru slowly change from pink to orange to red to purple. Its a beautiful sight and well worth the gigabytes of space it uses up on the thousands of tourist cameras which record every moment.

But… all those tourists are carefully corralled into a long narrow viewing area. They park their cars and stand by a fence and watch while their shadows stretch out in front of them. And they point their cameras in the right direction and snap away. The result is that everyone gets a good photo but everyone gets more or less exactly the same photo. This scene is repeated at countless view points, at sunrises and at sunsets throughout the world.

So for something a bit different, try this. Walk out of the corral and up the road a bit. Take a couple of steps into the bush and find a different and more unique view. Look for something different to include in the frame as foreground interest. Try climbing something or getting low to the ground for a change of perspective. So don’t be a sheep and your photos will (usually) be better for it.

 

In Other News

For those who live part of their lives in the lands of Middle Earth, this is a big day. The worldwide release of the second part of Peter Jackson’s movie of JRR Tolkien’s book The Hobbit is about to begin, and the world is suddenly a better place. For reasons best known to the High Elves the movie can be seen first by the dwarves in the low countries of Europe – Belgium for example! And for darker reasons, known only to the residents of Mirkwood, the orcs and goblins of South America must wait another couple of weeks.

But if you can’t wait the trailers and other videos on the official website may satisfy your craving…

 

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