I’ve had this image knocking about on a memory card for a while. I took it back in August when I went to Calais on a day trip with my eldest daughter, Helen. It’s taken inside the Phare de Calais, the lighthouse that dominates the town’s skyline.
The pic was taken in colour with my bottom of the range Nikon bridge camera (as opposed to the Samsung I’ve been using recently). The lighthouse is a popular tourist attraction and from the small reception area you can look up and see the spiral staircase leading up the tower from this perspective.
I took the shot simply because of the interesting perspective. Most images you see of spiral staircases seem to be taken from the top down but this goes the other way.
I hadn’t been too sure what to do with this shot. It was only when I converted it to black and white that I noticed my eye was drawn to the spiraling hand rail and the ever decreasing spiral it produces. It just brings out additional detail that wasn’t there in colour.
In fact it bought out a little too much detail. When in colour, I hadn’t noticed a small but unsightly power cable that dominated part of the picture. Using an overlay and some cropping I’ve managed to remove it.
I have linked this picture to the B&W Photography Project linky on the PODcastdove blog. Why not go take a look see what other photographers have been doing.
3 thoughts on “Spiral staircase B&W photography project”
Fabulous shot. I love the spiral effect – I get a bit of vertigo looking at it. It’s perfect for black and white too.
Thanks Shannon. I couldn’t decide if it was a good shot or not but it is certainly eye catching I think.
Absolutely love this photo, makes me a bit giddy but it’s brilliant. Shapes work so well in B&W don’t they. Brilliant capture. Thank you so much for linking up and sharing #bwphotoproject