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Leaning Tower of Pisa #1

The Leaning Tower of Pisa, with Romulus and Remus in the foreground, Pisa, Italy

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The story behind this image

One of the most famous icons of 'old' europe, the leaning tower of Pisa is truly a gravity defying spectacle.

Situated in the Piazza del Duomo, the tower spends its days surrounded by gawking tourists (myself and Liz included), all staring upwards with cameras pointed to the sky.

Trying to take a moderately decent photo of the tower is challenging at least, so I decided to break with tradition and not try and compose an image of the whole tower plus tourists, but rather I focused on just a portion of the tower, with just two tourists interestingly trapped behind an iron grille halfway up.

But how to show the tower is actually leaning?

Fortunately there are some vertical structures around the tower with which its lean can be compared, and I chose to include this column, with Romulus and Remis being suckled by the wolf, to add a further focal point to the image and to provide the necessary reference against which to judge the tower's angle.

I just hope it doesn't fall down any time soon!

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Image data


Filename - pisa leaning tower 01.jpg

Camera - Canon 5D

Lens - 24-105mm zoom @ 105mm

Exposure - 1/250sec @ f5.6, ISO200

Location - Pisa, Italy

This image - 800x533px JPEG

Conversion - ACR & PS-CS2

Comments - Fast shutter speed used to prevent blur with hand held exposure.