No Expectations

Photo of the Day - October 15, 2008

by Kip Cole on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 at 00:46 UTC

The Great Pyramid Early Morning

One of those “I can’t believe I’m actually here” moment. The Great Pyramid just in front of me. And it’s big. Really big. Bigger than it looks like in a photograph.

Photographing monuments is quite hard. How to convey the scale of the object? Compose to fit in the entire object, or focus on a detail? Include something else to give context or let the object stand for itself?

These were some of the questions going through my mind in composing this picture. I wanted to capture the image in the morning light. That proved a little tricky because the Giza plateau didn’t open until 8am the day I was there. I stayed in the magnificent Oberoi Mena House Hotel at the base of the plateau the previous night to maximise my opportunity. When built in the 1860’s, Giza was quite some distance from Cairo. Now the suburbs push all around the edges of the site.

Given how things work in Egypt I felt sure I could find some way to, er, ‘facilitate’ a special early access to the plateau to make some photographs. Alas, this was not to be. If only I had more time…

Nevertheless, my taxi was the 2nd car on the drive up to the entrance gate. Earlier even than the camel touts. Which meant I could at least get some small amount of time to take some images before the crowds swarmed. The light was bad - it really was too late in the day - typical Egyptian bright, shadowless glare.

With limited options I focused on an image I had in mind that would try to showcase the Great Pyramid but also give it some scale. One way to feature an object is to get close and use a wide-angle lens. This has the effect of projecting the image forward, giving it some three-dimensionality.

Then to give some sense of scale of the place it helps to have some contrasting object. People do just fine. So here we see a police van and some policemen. However, they are actually quite close to the camera and so don’t actually give too much sense of scale. Their position in the image does give some balance to the composition and a point of focus for the eye. Given the bright light, harsh contrast and muted colours of the desert, a black-and-white image was always the plan.

It’s the the people, almost ant-sized along the base of the pyramid that really give an indication of just how big this thing is.

Add Comment

Name and a valid email address are required. A website URL is optional. All information is used only for validation and spam management purposes. No information is divulged to any third party (except as required by law).