John & Maria's Photography Pages

High angle landscape / gardenscape

Just as a low angle of shooting can give a different aspect to a landscape or gardenscape shot so too can a high angle.

I'm not talking about climbing hills or mountains to shoot downwards to the valleys below.  My specific interest is in getting different views of gardens by getting shots from more elevated positions.

Sometimes it's easy.  This shot of my own rear garden was taken from a bedroom window...

...while this shot of the Sunken Garden at The Garden House was taken from the top of the tower in the walled garden.

As was this shot of the lower terrace of the Walled garden.

But what happens when the ground is flat and you'd like to get a viewpoint above eye level.  Well then I set the camera up on a monopd or a tripod with legs fully extended but unspread, switch on the self timer and hoist the whole thing well above head height.  It takes practice to get level shots that cover the viewpoint you want but it does give a different perspective.  It's like being 10-12ft tall.  For example, images like this:

Yes, there are more sophisticated ways of doing this, but they're also more expensive. So I'll stick to my cheap and cheerful technique and simply delete the duds.