It’s often about perspective, the angle from which one observes an object, philosophy, or idea. Patti Moed quotes Ansel Adams, “A good photograph is knowing where to stand.” She writes and shares examples of images captured from different viewpoints than “…directly in front of my subject and shoot straight ahead at eye level.” You can read her entire challenge post here.

As one who pretends to be a travel photographer, I often struggle with the best way to portray that singular place I feature in my travel blog. When I need to feature multiple photographs of a single object or location, I often try to capture the subject from different angles in hopes of finding the most interesting perspective views. Saint Joseph’s Catholic Parish in Sioux Falls, South Dakota is featured in my first example. For the exterior, I captured the building front from several different viewpoints, many emphasizing the height of the building by shooting from a low angle, close up. I ended up publishing only two exterior shots, the ones shown above. The first shot featured the skies threatening rain that day that I was able to emphasize by lowering the exposure slightly during processing. The second focused on the detailed exterior sculpturing that adds so much beauty to this church. I completely left out of the article the one straight on, eye level shot I captured from a distance across the street.

Near Gila Bend, Arizona, on old highway U.S. 80, a bridge that covers the river near the Gillespie Dam is a favorite tourist attraction. How many ways can one capture a bridge? For this story, I picked three. The image above captured from a small interpretive center viewpoint opened the story.

Clambering off the paved area onto the rocky area near the river bed’s edge, I included a view of the interpretive plaza from where I captured that opening image.

A view that included the local traffic on the now decommissioned U.S. highway that early motorists used to travel from Phoenix to Yuma, shows that the bridge and highway still get some use. The bridge, originally completed in 1927, was refurbished and the interpretive center added in 2012 as part of the Arizona Centennial Projects.

A story I featured recently focused on Dignity, a tribute to Native American women. Standing some 50 feet (15 m), a low angle opening photo was chosen to emphasize the height of this statue erected at a rest area site near Chamberlain, South Dakota. Another perspective at the base, however, probably does a better job of emphasizing the size of the artwork. It features visitors to the park standing at the statue’s base allowing the viewer to compare the statue to the size of “real people.”

The final image for this challenge features a view of the quilt held by Dignity. The colored panels are moveable and flutter in the wind. Small LED lights allow the effect to be visible at night.

Thanks, again, to Patti for allowing me to share photos of some of the places I’ve visited since I retired and began my journeys. As usual, I conclude with the note that most browsers will allow selection of any image for a closer view.

John Steiner