While shooting photos for the ad campaign for summer in Sydney at the harbour, I saw the huge construction site in front of the Opera House and a newly created foot bridge for pedestrians to cross the big hole in the ground. I instantly thought that this could be a great opportunity for me to get my camera in an unusual place to take photos from. After all, the construction site is only temporary and thus I might be able to shoot an image from the Opera House that that has not been shot to death.
It is very hard to find fresh and new angles of icons which have been shot to death, so I couldn’t wait to plan my next shoot from that bridge.
A week later I set out to going there and once I arrived at the top of the pedestrian bridge, I noticed that the safety fence of about 3 meters height would be a big obstacle. I went through my options of shooting through the fence, but quickly dismissed it as the mesh was way too narrow. Finally I could only think of climbing up the fence (not a good idea if you’re 20 meters above a construction hole with temporary fencing) or lift my camera up to the top of the fence and use live view to compose.
Finally a time when live view is actually useful. I have never otherwise used it as my trusted viewfinder is a much better and more reliable way to compose (especially as it is a 100% viewfinder on my trusted D300 – unlike many other cameras).
Here is the shot of the setup. I just lifted the camera up on the tripod and clamped my hands down to fix the tripod against the mesh of the fence. Finally with the remote release and via live view I managed to compose a shot of the Opera House that is unusual and unique as soon the bridge and the construction site will have disappeared.

Finding oportunities like that are really golden and I encourage anyone to go out there with open eyes and seize them as they present themselves. Oftentimes this might include a bit of trespassing on constructions sites etc, but it certainly keeps your photography unique and exciting.

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