Searching For Circularity (1)

Sometimes, taking low altitude photographs, I set myself the challenge of searching for a particular theme or shape. At various times I’ve set my sights on shadows, abstract patterns, lines, and rectangles. I’ve looked for autumn colors and glorious light in the sky.

And in every season of the year, I find myself looking for circles.

Why circles? Is just the sound a circle evokes? That awed, contented “O!”

Or maybe it’s the ambiguous way that the circle’s line, while finite, never ends.

Maybe it’s the spiritual suggestion of all parts of life, inter-connected, blending into each other. Or a hint of the cyclical nature of life. Birth to death to birth again. Winter to spring to summer to fall to winter.

 More simply, perhaps it’s because the circle features so large in both created works and nature’s profusion: the shape of earth, sun, and moon, ripples from a stone thrown into water, daisies. And trees, like this one captured in the golden light of the declining sun on a winter’s day. 

The pioneering pilot, Amelia Earhart, once said, “You haven’t seen a tree until you’ve seen its shadow from the sky.” Seen from above, the rounded shape is complemented here by the shadow which, created by the setting sun, reminds us how we’d see the tree from ground level.

Passing by a farm months later, in springtime, I glanced at the horizon and saw something intriguing, a pair of silos. So I parked the car, and launched the drone from the edge of the road.

When the aircraft arrived at the first silo, I realized it was long retired, and missing its roof. Never before have I looked down into the circle of a silo. I really enjoyed the perspective that only a drone could offer.

Nearby stood the second silo, a circle seriously rusted but still roofed.

I worked at positioning the drone to look at this one horizontally, so the camera could peek through the opposing doors of the dome to reveal, in the distance, trees and the rising ground. It wasn’t so easy with the breeze pushing the drone around, but at moments like this flying and photography uniquely complement each other.

Last time, I showed you a wide shot of St. Panteleimon church. This time, here’s a view of its copper-colored dome, surmounted by an orthodox cross.

Later, I realized that its ethereal form is mimicked by the prosaic circles and crosses of the air conditioning system.

A major challenge of aerial photography is that when the camera is facing straight down, images tend lose their sense of depth. Even hills and valleys often flatten into two dimensions. But not here.

The tiles at the centre of the dome reflect plenty of light into the camera’s lens, while the more vertical edges divert the light out to the sides. Because the steepest part of the slope appears darker, this drone photograph provides a robustly three-dimensional experience.

Next time, I’ll show you more of my favourite drone circles, and the solution to a photographer’s puzzle.