This is another perspective that I found interesting inside the Bell Tower in Antwerp, Belgium. A few floors up from where I took the horizontal Helix image I shared a few weeks ago, this is a vertical view straight down. It took several attempts to get the alignment correct in the camera, as I had to lean over the railing and extend my arms to get the camera centered over the staircase. It was not dangerous and there was no risk of me falling…just the camera. :)

However, composing a vertical composition while looking horizontally at my camera’s 45 degree LDC tilt-screen was challenging. It involved a lot of hand/arm/feet repositioning and trial & error before I had what I felt was a suitable image.

Standing at the bottom of spiral staircases and shooting upward is much easier. I did that here also, but the view from the bottom is not near as cool as this view from the top.

This image was taken in the main administrative building of the city of Antwerp, known as “The Bell Tower.” There is not an actual bell to be found inside the tower (at least, I could not find one), but there is an amazing spiral staircase that stretches 14 stories. Being a public building, it is open to visitors and easy to reach the staircase behind the main lobby. The staff in the reception area told me it was no problem to take some photos of the staircase, so I walked up to the top and took images at several different angles…looking up, down and this one, straight on.

As you know by now, I am drawn to how various shapes and lines interplay in photography. From this perspective, you find squares, diamonds, triangles, circles, repeating patterns, symmetry…and, of course the helix. All this variety, and yet I found it to be rather simple and pleasing.

I later learned that the building derived its name from its previous owner, Bell Laboratories…so perhaps there is not an actual bell to be found here after all.