Tag Archives: perspective

Lake Union Departures

The floatplane activity on Lake Union is fun to check out, not just for an aviation geek like me, but for plenty of visitors to the city too.  I have previously gone down to the lakeshore to check them out but, one evening, while driving into the city to drop a friend off, I was coming down the road on the hill overlooking the lake when a plane took off giving an interesting alternative perspective on its departure.  I figured this needed to be explored further.

The question was where to go.  The road I had been on was not one on which stopping was practical.  Parallel roads exist but there are buildings along most of them so the view is obscured.  However, I did find a location that had a clear view of most of the lake (aside from one building that was right in the touchdown zone!  I wasn’t around for much of the traffic but I did get to see a few arrivals and departures.  Looking down on the flights and having some scenery behind them including the cityscape rather than the sky is a nice change.  I may have to try this out again at a busier time.

Compression of Perspective

C59F1027.jpgShooting with a long focal length lens has the effect of compressing the image to make elements appear a lot closer together than they really are. When shooting from the helicopter over LAX I was using a 100-400mm lens. The aircraft themselves were quite low to the ground, particularly those on short final to land. They weren’t a long way off the ground but the lens in use had the effect of making things look a lot closer than they really were. Some of the shots I got of the aircraft over parking lots or near the In’n’Out really make it look as if the jets were barely airborne. I like the extra drama this adds to the shots.