The Castle of Borsh

Borsh Castle over the Albanian coast

At Borsh Castle, the surviving walls follow the irregular bedrock. In a steeper view, individual interior rooms can be seen; in an oblique view, the location above the overgrown slope. The distant coastal strip turns the floor plan into a picture of the Albanian landscape.

A floor plan on the rock

In the picture, Borsh Castle stands on the border between the nearby stone structure and the wide coastal landscape. Both distances together make the location of the facility more understandable.

A ruin is visible from above in places where walls change direction or merge into open interior spaces. There you can follow the floor plan, even if only individual sections have been preserved. Growth and shadows are part of the visible situation. A careful description of the image names the recognizable parts without reconstructing missing buildings from their outline alone. In comparison with a closer picture, it also becomes clear where the large lines of the overview consist of several individual pieces of wall.

The shape of the rock in the light

Rock surfaces are often harder to read in an aerial photograph than their sharp outline suggests. A dark area can be a deep crevice or just in shadow. The connection of several visible edges provides information. Where they converge and cover a surface, a spatial jump is understandable. A location with clear rock contours is suitable for publication with smaller images. In a larger format, the eye can wander more over the finer differences in the surface.

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.

Warm tones within the series

Among the 7 photos in the gallery, shot 6 and shot 3 provide a good starting point for the comparison. In the second view, warm reds and browns have more weight than in the first. Red-brown and yellowish areas are particularly noticeable next to cooler surfaces. What is interesting when comparing is whether they are concentrated on a single object or appear spread out across the entire view.

The camera captured September 21, 2021 for shot 1 and shot 7. The time interval between these two views is approximately 5 minutes. The exposure time was 1/800 second for the first of the images mentioned and 1/1000 second for the second.

A moving view is also available. The clip “The Castle of Borsh Albania” can be found under Aerial Videos. The linked preview leads to inclusion in the aerial photographer's portfolio on Adobe Stock.

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.

More aerial photos for comparison

Two further articles invite comparison. In the first, Goat Castle Torbali, a different detail is in the foreground. The ruins of the Goat Castle near Torbalı follow a barren ridge. Then Big Bunker is a good option. At the Big Bunker in Albania, the opening in the slope can be seen from above.