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San Gimignano's towers and squares
Above San Gimignano, the tall stone towers stand close to much lower roofs. In the wide view, the city appears as a closed figure in the Tuscan hilly landscape. In a closer perspective, squares and alleys make the distances between the towers understandable.
The structure around the gender towers
In San Gimignano the spacing of the towers is as interesting as their heights. Above the roofs, they mark different parts of the city and make it easier to compare two perspectives.
Up close, a tower draws the eye upwards. In the aerial photograph this movement is reversed. From the top, the eye follows the sides down to the ground and finds paths, neighboring buildings or vegetation for size comparison. A steep perspective shortens the visible shaft. When viewed from the side, it stands out from its surroundings. When selecting a representative image, it is therefore crucial whether the shape of the tower or its location in the terrain should be shown.
What the roofs reveal about the floor plan
If you look at it at an angle, the houses not only show their roofs, but also their facades of different widths. This gives the motif more depth than in the pure top view. Even the change from a low neighboring building to a taller building reveals something about the gradation of the place. Such a view is particularly useful for a local chronicle if the caption indicates the starting point of the view. Readers can then follow the rows of houses themselves to the edge of the picture.
The graduation of the mountain ranges
In a mountain landscape the view is divided into the foreground, middle slopes and distant heights. What merges into a closed surface in flat light separates into individual ridges when lit from the side. A gap between two ridges is often enough for the viewer to estimate the depth. For a landscape photograph, this gap is an important part of the subject. If you leave them standing while cropping, the spatial effect is retained even in a smaller image format.
The distribution of blue tones
For a direct image comparison, use shot 14 and shot 18 from the gallery with 18 aerial photos. In the first excerpt, shades of blue play a smaller role. In the second shot, blue areas take up more space. Blue can extend over a large contiguous area or only appear in individual parts. What also counts for the effect is whether these areas extend to the edge of the picture or surround the main subject.
According to camera data, Shot 1 and Shot 18 were taken on September 29, 2020. There is a gap of around 12 minutes between the two images. The exposure time was 1/200 second for the first of the images mentioned and 1/400 second for the second.
The Aerial Videos section supplements the photos with 2 clips. The aerial photographer's photos linked there include “San Gimignano in Tuscany from above”. The relevant video page on Adobe Stock can be opened using the respective preview.
Communicate architecture and location together
For a post about a building, two captions can fulfill very different tasks. The first names the system and explains its location, the second leads to a visible component. Historical construction phases or previous uses can hardly be determined from the roof color and current wall edges alone. However, an aerial photographer can show precisely which parts will actually be visible in the later photo. For a guide or local chronicler, this separation makes it easier to work with people who know the local building history.
Related motifs in the aerial photo archive
The article Italy – Montecosaro offers another perspective. Montecosaro stands out as a long settlement in front of the green surroundings of the Marche. In the gallery Ostuni there is a different focus. The bright buildings of Ostuni form a compact form from above.