Highs and Lows

I was at an arts and music festival helping out Lori with her pottery booth. I had a chance to wander around and shoot a few pictures. I brought the little Canon G9 and a monopod to get something other than the straight-on shots we instinctively go for.



One thing you can do is attach the camera to one end of the monopod on the side and then just rest that end on the ground and have the camera shoot upwards to get a ground-level view of the world.



Another easy way to get a different viewpoint it to fully extend the monopod and raise it high overhead to get a top-down view.

In both cases I find it convenient to simply set the camera at the hyperfocal distance (about 6.5 feet or 2 meters for the G9 at 7.4 mm set at f/5.6). Set the mode to aperture-preferred, put on a 5-second timer, click the shutter and either set the camera down or raise it high and wait for your 5-count to let you know the shutter has released.

It's not going to get you precision framing but you can get decent quality images from a seldom-used perspective. Also, if you're using a pocket camera, it's quite easy to move the camera into position at the end of the monopod and you won't attract quite as much attention as you would trying to wrestle a big DSLR into position to do the same thing.

(The only disturbing comment I got was from a woman who came from behind and, as she passed, said "Oh, thank God; I thought you had a gun." Maybe I should put some nice friendly colored electrical tape on my gun-metal grey monopod to reduce such anxieties.)