Glance at the summary firstThe summary from the end of the lesson, as a road map before you start reading.
A city from above shows when photographed not from the highest place but from a vantage point that sees from across the part of the city you want to tell; the distance decides compression and the effect of haze. Behind glass, pressing the lens against the glass cuts the room's reflections, while a polarizing filter helps only in an angled view; the double-glazing ghost shrinks with a perpendicular view, and the lamp lighting someone in front of the glass is placed so that its reflection falls outside the framing.
Learning goal
To photograph a city from above, you will be able to look not only for the highest place but for the place that sees the part of the city you want to tell; you will take into account that to show the most striking building you need to look not from on top of it but from across. When shooting through glass, by pressing the mouth of the lens against the glass and darkening around it, you will take the room's lamps and your own reflection out of the frame. You will know that a polarizing filter cuts glass reflection only at a certain angle, and does almost nothing when looking straight on. You will recognize the ghost of a double-glazed window that doubles bright lights, and try ways of avoiding it. You will put the lamp lighting the face of someone standing in front of the glass at an angle where its reflection doesn't fall into the frame.
The question
Your friend goes up to the meeting room on the top floor of the office block. From the room, surrounded by glass from ceiling to floor, the whole city can be seen: domes and minarets on one side, on the opposite side roofs running down to the sea. They raise the camera and shoot the first frame. On the screen there is the city, but floating on it are the room's ceiling lamps; in the middle of the glass the reflection of their own silhouette and the camera's red light; and in the sky a faint, slightly shifted copy of the same lamps. While looking out of the window they hadn't noticed any of these. How do you photograph a city from above?
Context
While comparing focal lengths, you found that when looking with a narrow angle from a distant point, things behind lean on things in front and grow, that is, perspective compression (Lesson 12.4). Among the filters you tried that a polarizing filter can cut reflections on non-metal surfaces like water, glass and leaves (Lesson 13.2). While working with a reflector you also measured that light coming onto a shiny surface goes back at the same angle at which it came (Lesson 18.3).
A cityscape asks for all of this knowledge at the same time. Most places that see the city are a tower, a hotel, a terrace or a glass-clad room; an open-air hill, on the other hand, is often at the city's edge. The location decides which face of the city you will see, the glass how cleanly you will see that face. This lesson takes up the two in turn.
Simple explanation
From where should you see the city?
An opposite vantage point is a viewpoint that sees a city's most distinct building, or the part that tells the most, from across, not standing on it or in it. Climbing the tallest tower often gives the city's widest view, but takes that tower out of the frame: the building that is the city's symbol can't be seen while you stand on it. Seeing the same tower from a hill opposite, from a bridge or from another building's terrace puts it in a frame together with the rest of the city.
To find the opposite vantage point, you first decide what the frame will tell: a row of domes, a shoreline, the towers of a business district? Then on a map you look for high places that face that part: parks, bridges, public terraces, the tops of slopes. The distance decides the compression: domes shot with a long lens from a distant hill look piled on top of each other and crowded, while those shot at a wide angle from a near terrace look scattered and deep. The air between is taken into account too; as the distance grows, haze makes the city paler, so distant vantage points give more detail on clear days after rain or on windy days.
How are glass reflections avoided?
The reflections seen when shooting through glass come from bright things on your side of the glass: ceiling lamps, a screen, light-colored clothes, the camera's own lights. By day, because the outside is much brighter than the inside, these reflections stay weak; in the evening and at night they come forward as the outside darkens.
Lens against glass is touching the front of the lens, or a rubber lens hood, to the glass and cutting off the light around the lens. The room's light can't reach the area of glass the lens sees while touching the glass, and the reflections largely vanish. If there is no hood, wrapping a dark jacket or cloth around the lens does the same job. If possible, the room's lights are turned off and the glass wiped beforehand; fingerprints and dust leave a halo around bright city lights.
A polarizing filter is limited here. Light reflected from glass is most polarized when the view is about fifty-six degrees off the line perpendicular to the glass's surface; at that angle the filter can erase the reflection almost entirely. When looking straight at the glass, on the other hand, the reflected light is hardly polarized at all and the reflection stays even if the filter is turned. Lens against glass works in this straight-on view, where the polarizing filter can't.
Why do lights double?
A double-glazing ghost is the appearance, in a two-layer window, of a faint, slightly shifted twin of a bright light reflected from both the inner and the outer glass. By day it isn't distinct; at night a streetlamp, a bridge's lights or the moon appear with a faint twin beside them. Pressing against the glass cuts the reflections coming from inside, but doesn't fully prevent the outside light from going back and forth between the two panes.
The way to shrink the ghost is to hold the camera as perpendicular to the glass as possible; as the angle grows, the two copies move apart. Some towers and terraces have a window that opens or a part without glass; if there is one, both the ghost and the reflection disappear. The remaining small copies can be erased one by one in the edit, but this isn't a correction but an intervention, and it takes a lot of time in a crowded night frame.
Visual evidence
Your friend asks the building's night guard for permission to turn off the room's lights. The middle-aged, dark-skinned guard with a gray mustache turns off the lights and says he would like to be in a frame himself.
Your friend presses the rubber hood against the glass at a slight angle and shoots a frame looking at the domes with a thirty-millimeter lens: no lamps, no silhouette, the sky clean. Beside the streetlamps, though, there are faint twins; when they bring the camera exactly perpendicular to the glass, the twins almost coincide with the lights.
They seat the guard in front of the glass with the domes behind him. To light his face they put a desk lamp beside him; in the first frame the lamp's reflection shines inside the glass right beside the guard's head. Remembering that the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection, they move the lamp a little further to the side and back, and the reflection slides out of the framing. The lamp's warm light lights the guard's dark brown face from the side; the grays of his mustache and the lines of his forehead can be picked out, behind him the city at blue hour.
The next evening they photograph the domes again from the hill opposite, from a park: no glass, and the office block's tower is in the frame together with the city's other buildings.
Common mistakes
Common mistakeShooting through glass with the lens held away from the glass.
The lamps and your own reflection appear over the city. The fix: press the hood or the lens against the glass, cover around it with a dark cloth.
Common mistakeTrying to erase the reflection with a polarizing filter while looking straight at the glass.
At this angle the filter does almost nothing. The fix: in a straight-on view press against the glass; use the filter only in an angled view.
Common mistakePlacing the lamp lighting someone in front of the glass without looking at its reflection.
The lamp shows in the glass as a bright spot. The fix: taking the angle of reflection into account, move the lamp to where its reflection falls outside the framing.
Summary
A city from above shows when photographed not from the highest place but from a vantage point that sees from across the part of the city you want to tell; the distance decides compression and the effect of haze. Behind glass, pressing the lens against the glass cuts the room's reflections, while a polarizing filter helps only in an angled view; the double-glazing ghost shrinks with a perpendicular view, and the lamp lighting someone in front of the glass is placed so that its reflection falls outside the framing.
Mini assignment
In this assignment you will photograph your city from two separate vantage points.
- Choose a part of your city you want to tell, and on a map find a public high place that sees it from across.
- If you can shoot from a place with glass, shoot one frame with the lens held away from the glass and one pressed against it; if you shoot in the evening, look for twins beside bright lights.
- Seat a person in front of the glass, get their permission and light their face with a lamp; change the lamp's place until its reflection in the glass falls outside the framing.
Check yourself
- Does the vantage point you chose take the building you want to tell into the frame?
- In the frame pressed against the glass, did the room's and your own reflection vanish?
- Is the person's face lit and in its own tone, and does the lamp show in the glass?
Glossary
| Term | Short definition |
|---|---|
| Opposite vantage point | A viewpoint that sees a city's most distinct building or part from across, not standing on it or in it. |
| Lens against glass | Preventing inside reflections by touching the lens or a rubber lens hood to the glass and cutting off the light around it. |
| Double-glazing ghost | The appearance, in a two-layer glass, of a faint, slightly shifted twin beside a bright light. |
Mini quiz
1. To show a tower that is the city's symbol in the frame, where do you need to shoot from?
- A) From the top of the tower
- B) From inside the tower, looking down
- C) From a hill or terrace that sees the tower from across
- D) From the foot of the tower, looking up
2. When shooting through glass, how are the reflections of the room's lamps avoided?
- A) By pressing the lens or a rubber hood against the glass
- B) By raising the ISO
- C) By opening the aperture
- D) By moving the camera away from the glass
3. Why does a polarizing filter do almost nothing when looking straight at the glass?
- A) Because the filter doesn't work at night
- B) Because in a straight-on view the reflected light is hardly polarized at all
- C) Because the glass bends the light
- D) Because the filter works only on water
4. What is done so that the lamp lighting someone seated in front of the glass doesn't show in the glass?
- A) The lamp is put right in front of the face
- B) The lamp's power is raised
- C) The person is moved away from the glass
- D) The lamp is moved to an angle where its reflection falls outside the framing
Answers
- C — The building you stand on can't be seen in the frame; looking from across shows it together with the city.
- A — The room's light can't reach the area of glass seen by the lens touching it, and the reflections vanish.
- B — Polarization is strongest in an angled view, at about fifty-six degrees; in a straight-on view there is no light left for the filter to cut.
- D — Because light goes back at the same angle at which it came, moving the lamp to the side takes the reflection out of the framing.
Summary card
- Not the highest place, but the place that sees the part you'll tell from across.
- Distance decides compression and haze; a clear day opens up a distant vantage point.
- Press the lens against the glass, darken around it, turn off the room's lights.
- A polarizing filter works in an angled view, not in a straight-on view.
- For the double-glazing ghost stand perpendicular to the glass; take the lamp's reflection out of the framing.
Bridge to the next lesson
In the frame shot from the hill opposite, the building that stands out most is the dome of a centuries-old mosque. The next day your friend wants to photograph its inside too: a dim interior, light filtering down from high windows, the glint of tiles and people praying. At the door they hesitate. Photography in a mosque, a church, a museum? The next lesson takes up asking permission in a place of worship or a museum, minding respect for the people there, and shooting without flash in low light.