Caves With a View

Mines With a View


photography
Photographer with frame, Krippenstein, Austria.
photography
View from inside the Eisriesenwelt entrance, Austria.

This sounds a bit strange: a cave or mine is underground, so how can it have a view?


The answer is quite easy: the cave entrance may provide a view. Some caves are located in a beautiful area and allow a special view from their entrance. Sometimes its the main entrance, or an opening on the tour, and sometimes its the exit with an overwhelming panorama.

Sometimes even the entrance hall is impressive and it provides an additional element to the view: the border or frame for the picture. A landscape always looks better with a frame. If you don't believe me, go to a nice landscape and compare the view with and without the frame of a window. I discovered this fact when I visited Grand Canyon South Rim in U.S.A. There was a Visitor Center right at the rim, and all people left their cars, entered the Visitor Center and then took a picture through the huge panorama window.

Any photographer knows its a bad idea to take pictures through glass, if there is the possibility to do this without glass. But there seems to be some psychological effect which makes us prefer panoramas with some form of restriction. Probably we are simply overwhelmed by the reality and try to make it easier to handle. However, you can use this by taking pictures through a cave or mine opening.

Others have discovered this effect too. On famous outlooks there are now frames installed to see and photograph the landscape through a frame.