Photographing from all angles in a Turkish fairytale landscape
Posted on: 17 Apr 2012
Written by: Ngaire Ackerley
Looking up, I see natural structures that could have resembled part of a smurf village if they were painted blue and white, but instead they were a lovely variety of muted rocky tones and referred to as ‘fairy chimneys’ in Cappadocia, Turkey.
I recently had the pleasure of travelling to Turkey and finding some landscapes that are stunningly out of this world. Cappadocia is home to rock formations that were formed from volcanic eruptions and have since been weathering. These structures are diverse from valley to valley and incredible to see. Over the years people created caves for their homes and churches from these rocks, which adds to the surreal quality that they hold.
Given the environment I was in, I decided to make the most of these amazing rock formations and try to photograph them from many different angles to see how the composition of my photographs would change. I started by photographing at ground level and climbing up amongst the rocks to be elevated, giving me the ability to shoot from below the rocks looking up and straight on.
If I was creating a narrative of this area then the initial images would be an overview of Cappadocia to set the scene. This meant finding somewhere even higher than the rocks themselves to get decent photographs of the entire landscape to put these structures in perspective of their surroundings. To do this I found elevated wide cliffs that act as fantastic viewpoints, overlooking the valleys of Cappadocia. Even the cliffs I was standing on were unique landscapes in themselves, with white smooth curves rolling down to the ground. This reminded me that it is important no only to look out over the subject matter I desired, but also closer to me, down and along the structure I was standing on.
So far, I’d been able to photograph from low, medium and high viewpoints, but I wanted to go a step further and be able to shoot from above, directly down over these rock formations and between them, where you cannot reach by foot. Aerial photography is never easy because you’re constantly moving and depending on your mode of transport getting a clear shot can be difficult if you need to shoot through windows or in open air space with wind. However, I decided to go for a common activity in Cappadocia and took an early morning hot-air balloon ride. In the corner of a 16 person basket of a hot-air balloon, I was able to capture photographs between rock formations where you could not easily reach on foot. I also photographed directly down over these rock formations, producing entirely different compositions altogether, almost abstract in some ways. Given the time of day, the hot-air balloon ride produced different lighting conditions (including a sunrise) on the different colours of the landscapes. The Red and Rose Valleys have varying tones of red rocks, some valleys were brown and tan tones, while other valleys were almost pure white. This meant careful consideration of camera settings to best suit both the lighting conditions and diverse colours of the landscapes.
This experience in Cappadocia has shown me how diverse landscapes can be when viewed from vastly different angles. I often shoot from very low on the ground and also from taller platforms that I can reach, but shooting directly down on a landscape from above is something different altogether. While my past tandem skydiving and paragliding trips never allowed me a camera, my travels through Cappadocia have inspired to think outside the box for alternative angles, platforms and modes of transport to shoot photographs from, to produce unique unexpected compositions. Creating images such as these can transform how someone looks at a subject matter, allowing them consider it in more detail because it is not something most people see everyday.
Like what you see? Check out more photographs from Ngaire’s travels through Turkey here »
