This week our guest host, James of the Jazzibee blog, challenges us to consider looking up and down. The world looks a bit different depending on your viewpoint. James writes, “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 wide angle lens.” You can check out his entire challenge post here.

I was lucky to find a single image that actually meets both criteria. In Saint Augustine, Florida, the lighthouse museum on Anastasia Island features a convex mirror mounted almost at ground level. If you look down to take a photo of the mirror, you can get your own personal selfie as the mirror “looks up” at the lighthouse in the background.

Most of my images for this challenge features are paired, one looking up, the other providing a downward view. Sugarloaf Mountain in Rio de Janeiro attracts tourists by providing two cable car rides, the first to an intermediate mountain and the second to the top of Sugarloaf itself. This view of Sugarloaf was captured while we waited in line for the second of the two cable car rides.

There aren’t many places, though, where you can get views looking down on Sugarloaf Mountain short of taking a helicopter tour. There is one place, however, where the view of Sugarloaf from above is possible. That’s from one of the platforms built on the top of Mount Corcovado. What you can’t see in this view of Sugarloaf is up and to the right. The 98-foot (30 m) tall statue of Christ the Redeemer.

Visitors to Niagara Falls can look up at the three waterfalls from the Maid of the Mist tour boats. The largest of the three falls is Horseshoe Falls, also known as the Canadian Falls. Of course, you will get wet, even with the provided rain parkas. Keeping your camera and lens dry is all but impossible unless you have an underwater housing or choose not to take any photos at all. Knowing this, I grabbed a half-dozen or so lens wipes and put them in my pocket. By the time our boat got to the Canadian Falls, I’d used up every lens wipe I had with me.

Getting the view of the Canadian Falls from above is easy if you don’t mind waiting in a long line for the elevator that will take you to the top of Skylon Tower on the Canadian side of the Niagara River. If you look in the lower left of the image, you can see an approaching boat. Then if you look at the mist generated by the falls, you’ll understand completely why your gear and your clothes underneath the parka will get wet.

The giant cathedral in Barcelona, Spain, and architect Gaudí’s homage to God can’t be viewed from above without that helicopter tour, but from Montjuïc at the 1992 Olympic swimming arena, you can look down at the city of Barcelona and see how high the cathedral rises over the city.

I don’t know which is more impressive, looking down at Barcelona to see the cathedral rise above the city or to stand at ground level and look up at the unfinished work. Our tour guide hinted that La Sagrada might be finished by 2026. Construction started in 1882 so if it is completed in 2026, the cathedral’s opening would coincide with the 100th anniversary of Gaudí’s death.

When something is big in a big city, so big that you cannot back away far enough to capture the entire structure, you may have to resort to an unusual perspective. In December, this image will be exposed again as a Cellpic Sunday with a story about the unusual perspective.

Thanks for stopping by. I look forward to reading your comments. As we are on a cruise right now and have limited access to the Internet, I may be a bit late in my reply. Please forgive my tardiness. You can view my images in 2K HD on my Flickr site here. Thanks to Anne’s Fill the Frame challenge last week, and thanks also to James for being a guest host this week. Next week, Patti hosts. If you’d like to join in on the challenges each week but aren’t sure how to get started, you can learn the details here.

John Steiner