Sondershausen

The castle as a focal point of Sondershausen

In Sondershausen, the large castle wings grouped around a courtyard stand out compared to the smaller town houses. Roof shapes and walls emerge from close range. The overviews place the complex in the context of the green slopes and the town center.

The castle complex in the city

In Sondershausen it is worth tracing the extent of the castle through the courtyard. This open space connects several parts of the building that appear separated from each other in a single facade.

When looking at a castle, it is worth looking at the roofs and the spaces between them separately. A large roof wing initially attracts attention. In addition, a courtyard or a narrow passage can show much better how the parts of the system are connected. An oblique aerial photo also gives an idea of ​​their altitude. With a narrower section, a piece of outer wall or slope maintains orientation and allows the building to remain visible in the context of its location.

Courtyards and entrances

In a courtyard, the relationships between buildings change. What appears from the outside to be a single long building can actually wrap around several open areas. In a steep aerial view, the passageways, the corners and the orientation of the adjacent roofs become understandable. For a caption, a specific reference to the visible side of the courtyard is often more helpful than a list of all the buildings. This means the viewer can recognize the spatial connection themselves and find it again in other images.

What the roofs reveal about the floor plan

A city center can often be read by its roofs. Where narrow gables are close together, the street space is also divided into short sections. A large, connected building interrupts this sequence. In the aerial photo you can follow the direction of an alley from such an interruption. For an illustration in a smaller format, a section with just a few easily distinguishable roof groups is worthwhile. In a large print, however, the spaces and small changes in direction are allowed to keep their place.

Warm tones within the series

Among the 8 photos in the gallery, shot 8 and shot 6 provide a good starting point for the comparison. In the second view, warm reds and browns have more weight than in the first. Red-brown and yellowish areas are particularly noticeable next to cooler surfaces. What is interesting when comparing is whether they are concentrated on a single object or appear spread out across the entire view.

The camera captured April 18, 2020 for shot 8 and shot 1. The time interval between these two views is approximately one minute. The exposure time was 1/400 second for the first of the images mentioned and 1/500 second for the second.

Communicate architecture and location together

For a post about a building, two captions can fulfill very different tasks. The first names the system and explains its location, the second leads to a visible component. Historical construction phases or previous uses can hardly be determined from the roof color and current wall edges alone. However, an aerial photographer can show precisely which parts will actually be visible in the later photo. For a guide or local chronicler, this separation makes it easier to work with people who know the local building history.

More aerial photos for comparison

Two further articles invite comparison. In the first, Creuzburg, a different detail is in the foreground. In Creuzburg the castle sits directly above the roofs of the town. Then you can go to Weißensee (Thuringia). In Weißensee, the walls and red roofs of the castle area stand out clearly between the greenery and residential buildings.