When I’m capturing a family field trip like our recent trip to the Calvert Marine Museum my real estate photographer instincts kick in and I find myself looking for unique ways to capture the location – angles or points of view that might be different from what others have already taken. After all – anyone can capture a straight-on shot of the front of any building. What can I see that might be different than what someone else might have already seen? What can I capture that might also convey a sense of time of day or season or perspective or place?
While I was sitting beneath the Drum Point Lighthouse waiting for my children to come back down (after their 3rd trip up into the lighthouse this weekend) I noticed the sun bursting through the cracks between the lighthouse flooring. It was late afternoon and I had already given up the idea of taking a shot of the exhibition hall from this angle because of the position of the sun and the resulting flare in the lens. However… when using the flooring of the lighthouse to control the sun it both allowed the blue sky to really shine as well as added a unique feature to the image in the form of a sunburst. Dialing up my aperture and then making sure to include the information sign to give some context for where I was standing created an image that I really like.
