A few posts ago, I asked if anyone could tell how this photo was taken. It is the first boundary stone that was placed at Jones Point in Alexandria, VA. It marked the origin of the capital city of the United States, Washington, DC. For sure it is a challenge to get access to it. Being that it has been protected behind a seawall underneath the ground in front of the Jones Point Lighthouse.
Alexandria, Virginia
On the other side of the seawall is a very marshy area that leads to the Potomac River. I tried to walk the little ways to the window opening of the wall. Howver, the ground did not hold my weight very well. Perhaps the tide had just rolled out, and the timing was not right to walk. In any case, the overgrown brush was not trampled or stepped on. So, no one has ventured out to see the stone that way in some time.
Jones Point
I was determined to get a photo of the stone, but the bright sun and the thick glass above the stone meant that shooting from directly above would not make it possible. Too many reflections from the glass made it impossible to see. So my wife had an idea – hang the camera from over the fence to take the photo. PERFECT!
Camera Technique
Thinking about how to go about this – a tripod or monopod mounted to the camera would give me a stable way to hold the camera, but I did not think it would be that flexible. So I just checked that the straps were extra tight on the camera before DANGLING IT OFF THE SIDE OF THE FENCE.
For the camera, I zoomed the wide lens all the way out to get as much of the space in the frame as I could. Then I connected the Nikon MC-30 Remote Trigger Release so that I could fire the shutter when the camera was in position, and stable since it did rotate back and forth on the trip down. From the photo, the frame would be made upside down in the camera, but that is of course, a very easy fix in software. Mission accomplished!
I would not normally recommend dangling a camera from a strap. Nor would I recommend taking photos without looking through the viewfinder or the Live View from the sensor, but sometimes extremes are necessary to get a unique image. I’m sure next time I visit, everything will be cleared away, and you can just walk up and stick your camera in the window! Let me know if you have any stories of ways you got your camera into hard to reach places.
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