Belly shots…

This photo is from a recent trip to Turkey. How many eye-level photos do we actually take? That would be a great GPS metadata tag addition to our cameras.

Getting down low can add an exciting new perspective to often-photographed scenes. This particular area of Turkey was very conservative and we were told that people could be reluctant to have their photo taken. Since it was nearly impossible to figure out what I was shooting from this odd angle, I managed not to offend anyone.

When shooting from low angles there is a huge bit of chance as to what you will get. I admittedly delete many more of these shots than I keep. What helped to get this shot? A D800 with a large file size for starters. I knew I could shoot wide-angle so as to get everything possible coming into the frame yet still be able to crop down later if a simpler composition was in order. It also helped that I framed up a clean background as much as I could.

This location was not overly filled with people. These women casually meandered into the area. Chances are that if somebody else had come into the frame this photo wouldn’t be a keeper. It also helped that the background conveyed a sense of place – it was definitely not taken in Ohio. As for the women, there was certainly some luck involved that they happened to walk together and stagger themselves in my frame without any direction from me!

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