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Photographing Follies

Most landscape and architectural guidance applies to follies. In particular perspective and making things stand up straight.

Probably the most common mistake is in producing close ups on follies, therefore not showing them as a part of a scene. In this form the fact that they were constructed half size to make the gardens or estate scene appear larger, does not show. It should also be remembered that most were designed to be viewed form only some angles, but not all, perhaps from the house, an estate drive etc.

Before photographing a folly, look to see how the landscape works, what impact it has, perhaps holding up your hand so that you can see the scene without it being present, and with. Can you photograph the scene to capture the effect.

Lighting can sometimes be critical with follies, so using your Sun Compass may help you to work out both in advance and when there, the best time to capture the illusion. Remember that someone purposely created an illusion with this structure, its not something that just happened to have appeared there.

I would suggest that Stourhead in Wiltshire is the best place to fully understand the effect that a folly or several can have an impact on the scene, as you walk around the lake you will find many vistas, many views, many temples, follies and other structures, all carefully put in place. Many of these structures although large appear larger than they are, making the garden area larger at every turn.

See Also

Follies Section

List of Follies in the UK 

Sun Compass