Bird's eye view

One of the great things about being a photographer is the opportunities it offers you to see things that not a lot of people get to see. Today I found myself dangling from the jib of a crane some 500 feet above Elephant & Castle photographing the steels being installed on top of Castle House, a 42 story apartment block which on completion will be the tallest building in South East London until the Shard is completed. I found it quite amusing to see workers pulling out camera phones to photograph me – apparently people suspended beneath cranes was not something they saw very often, and a few later suggested that it was not something they would wish to do.

The curious thing is that while I cannot claim to love being high and exposed, give me a camera and it acts like a shield, or some kind of sci-fi psychological protection envelop – I know a lot of photographers have expressed similar sentiments when working in what might otherwise be high stress environments.

I thoroughly enjoyed the ride, and was able to concentrate on the job I had to do. It didn’t even bother me when on coming over the apex of the building the updraft from the south side of the building sent the cage into a spin – it just made it difficult to frame the photographs.

Castle House has been nicknamed the electric razor.