F4LUFTBILDER
Berneburg in the green valley
Near Berneburg, the houses stretch into the green of a narrow valley. Some roofs are clearly located away from the more densely built-up center. In the series' muted lighting, the streets and the brighter meadows that connect the two areas are particularly noticeable.
Meadows between the groups of houses
A picture of Berneburg can show the houses as individual groups or as a connected place. The green space is crucial. If you leave it visible, the location in the valley remains visible and the scattering of the houses becomes a motif in itself.
Two different narrative directions emerge along a valley and across it. The longitudinal view leads into the distance and shows what is arranged one behind the other. Looking sideways, the width of the valley floor and the rise on either side become clearer. Which view is convincing depends on the question asked of the image. For a description of the location, a lateral view is often productive. For a stretch along a route, the longitudinal view gives the viewer a direction to follow across multiple subjects.
How the place changes from the inside out
The center of a town can often be recognized from the air by the intersection of several streets. These lines diverge towards the open landscape, the properties become longer and the distances between the houses become larger. Anyone who chooses an image for a location portrait can pay attention to these transitions. A motif with a piece of the surrounding area tells where the place is. A narrower shot, on the other hand, gives people who live or have lived here more opportunities to find familiar buildings in the picture.
What role does visibility play?
When haze or clouds weaken the distance, the closer landscape stands out all the more. Colors and contrasts change with distance. For a calm landscape portrait, this may be exactly what you want. When it comes to the spatial assignment of a specific motif, at least one prominent point should remain clearly recognizable. A caption can indicate the visibility conditions. It makes it understandable why part of the landscape is only hinted at and where the view can begin.
The distribution of blue tones
For a direct image comparison, use shot 3 and shot 2 from the gallery with 5 aerial photos. In the first excerpt, shades of blue play a smaller role. In the second shot, blue areas take up more space. Blue can extend over a large contiguous area or only appear in individual parts. What also counts for the effect is whether these areas extend to the edge of the picture or surround the main subject.
According to camera data, Image 5 and Image 3 were taken on December 6, 2018. There is a gap of less than a minute between the two images. The exposure time was 1/50 second for the first of the images mentioned and 1/30 second for the second.
Select landforms for a landscape portrait
When publishing about a mountain range, the direction of view should be stated in the caption, as long as it can be determined with certainty. The same ridge can look very different from one valley than from the other side. For the aerial photographer, the question arises when planning whether the location in the foreground or the shape in the distance should be the deciding factor. If a close and a distant reference point is retained in the image, even readers without local knowledge can understand the gradation of the terrain.
Related motifs in the aerial photo archive
The article Asmushausen offers another perspective. The houses in Asmushausen are spread out in small groups between meadows and slopes. In the gallery Allendorf (Lumda) there is a different focus. The town views of Allendorf an der Lumda combine a dense center with loosely built-up peripheral areas.