We visited the palace-fortress-gardens complex of Alhambra in Granada in 45-degree (C) weather with our three-year-old daughter and with no particular plan for photography. I wanted to try to capture our subjective impression of the sizzling heat through close-up portraits, but I also wanted to take some descriptive photos of this famous tourist attraction. The place is so overwhelmingly beautiful, with its lace of stone carvings and bubbling fountains, that I quickly ran out of creative ideas of what to photograph besides the cliche shots of people posing in front of the pools receding into the background, framed by orange trees. 
In that sense, it was very helpful to take a break from walking through the gardens and temporarily escape the heat by visiting a photography exhibit in one of the palaces that featured the architecture of Alhambra. Seeing the same subject through someone else’s lens not only highlighted the iconic viewpoint, but also defined what not has been done (at least within the scope of that particular exhibit). The main idea that I took from the exhibit was to vary the technique for the single subject. For example, I tried to shoot the carved walls looking directly at them and at very oblique angles, using shallow and deep depth of field, long and short lenses, in direct light and in contre-jour, etc.
Related
