Looking up… again

I watched the start of a new series on TV last night called FlashForward.  As a big fan of Lost I was interested to see that it is made by the same people, and has the same air of “what the heck is going on?” about it.  It looks like one to watch if you’re into that sort of thing.  Anyway, at the start of the second episode in last night’s double bill there was a sequence of aerial photography like those sequences that have become more and more popular in recent years, where the camera is pointing vertically down at the ground.  It reminded me of something I tend to do.

I imagine for years and years aerial shots were always taken as if looking out the window of an airplane or a helicopter, and if fact perhaps this is because they were shot like that.  And presumably at some point someone started thinking if they could mount the camera on the bottom of the airplane or helicopter and point it straight down at the ground to get a unique viewpoint that only hang-gliders would have seen.  And for a while this was quite novel.  And then it caught on with other aerial sequences so that now it appears on everything from big Hollywood opening sequences to the start of the Apprentice.  Still though, I like the effect.

In much the same way, I once pointed a camera straight up at a ceiling and took a photograph. The resultant image, thanks to a combination of the unique viewpoint and the fisheye lens I used to capture it, garnered a lot of praise, and even an award or two.

As it was an idea that could produce a different sort of image, a few months later I tried it again and once more the shot proved successful.  Both shots are actually amongst those that I’ve sold since I started showcasing them on the blog, and are amongst my favourite photos.

When I took the shot of the ceiling of Leinster House’s foyer, it was actually the second time that day I had used that perspective in that building to get a photo.  It was by far the better image of the two, but the first image, taken with the fisheye lens, is probably worth showing here.  It is of the staircase which leads up to the entrance to the Dáil Chamber, and was where the tour of Leinster House (that allowed me access to take this pictures) started.

With the fisheye lens it’s best to use a centered composition, and so to take this shot I needed to move up a few steps on the stairs so that I was reasonably central under the skylight.  The fisheye adds distortion as you know, and that manifests itself here in the curves of the railing around the upper landing, but because there’s a natural curve in the design of this part of the building anyway, I don’t think it looks too distracting.

The exposure had to be compensated to ensure that the hallway was not underexposed due to the bright sky through the skylight, with the result that the sky is blown out, but that’s the lesser of two evils, and I like how the bulbs on the ceiling lights are actually held within the range of the sensor so there’s even a little detail there.

I’ll probably continue looking up at ceilings of buildings I visit to photograph, and hopefully will continue to get shots with a difference by doing so.  Then again, I’m sure those camera men on all those films and television shows think they’re getting opening sequences with a difference when they fly over those cities with their camera pointed straight down.