Friday's Photolife--changing up an icon

Wednesday's answer and winner: We only had one person get it right this week. Congrats, Crimey! The answer was the Empire State Building.

On to the Photolife:

Here are a few more views. I love getting different views of famous things. Lighting and angle are great ways of changing up something that is very familiar.

Put the sun behind you and it's all lit up. Include the name so people will know what it is. (For less familiar things this is nice for you as well. I've been known to take pictures of street signs and exhibit names just so that I will know where I was and what I've taken when I go back a couple years later. Now a lot of cameras have GPS and will log that info but it is still nice to have the name in some pictures.)

Put the sun in the picture and get a sunburst and a rainbow, AND with this angle from a little farther away it's much easier to identify. How would you have fared on Wednesday if I'd used this picture?

Wait for a change in ambient light, and include surrounding buildings. It's especially nice when you get a reflective surface like the building on the right to continue the sky or some other element of the photo. With this angle, I bet most of you would have known what the building was.

Application to writing? When describing a scene, think about how familiar you want things to be or how you can change up something that everyone knows. e.g. image 1: the glowing window strips ascending into the blue..., image 2: the sunburst painted a rainbow..., image 3: the window washers hung in the evening's reflection with the Empire State Building looking on...