*The former executioner's cottage located in lush, green parkland in Salzburg, Austria.*

I discovered the Executioner’s Cottage in Salzburg by chance. It's a delightful place, straight out of a storybook.

The cottage is so cute and the setting that surrounds it is picturesque in the extreme. If I didn’t know it’s history, I’d want to live there.

I spent a few days in the lovely city of Salzburg, one of my favourite cities in the world, near the end of a long and exhilarating European photography adventure.

Prior to undertaking this journey my travel agent talked me into doing a few short tours in and around Salzburg.

It wasn’t an easy sell given that I’m really not a group tour kind of guy.

Nonetheless, I took the bait reasoning that, as I occasionally run special purpose photography tours, it would be interesting to observe a more general tour from the other side of the fence.

At the end of one of these short tours we drove back into Salzburg and our guide pointed out some of the more lavish houses in town.

He made a big deal about how expensive real estate prices were and how he’d never be able to buy a house in Salzburg.

I pointed towards the cute little cottage, in the front of this photo, and asked why there was so much vacant land around it.

I couldn’t believe it and assumed it was either some sort of public park or that the land belonged to whoever owned the mansion in the back of the photo.

He answered that, in days gone by, the cottage was the home of the town’s executioner and that it had been considered bad luck to live too close to it.

That was it, I was hooked.

I didn’t care who currently owned the land. History had become fantasy and I’d become instantly absorbed in what I imagined was the life of the mysterious executioner from days gone by.

It’s a gorgeous building in a beautiful location. But the mystery of the Executioner of Salzburg stayed in my mind as I continued to wander the streets of Salzburg over coming days.

How I Photographed The Executioner's Cottage

I found my way up to the Fortress Hohensalzburg where I happened upon a spot with a great view down onto the cottage.

Though it was a dreary, wet day the vantage point was great and I was really happy to have had the opportunity to photograph the Executioner’s Cottage.

Like a lot of my photos this image is based largely around composition. Let’s break it down, one element of composition at a time.

Color

Green is the dominant color in this image. It’s a color that we associate with growth, freshness and fertility.

No wonder the color green has become synonymous with political parties that identify strongly with our natural environment.

Green is also a color that symbolizes calmness and harmony. It’s important because the lush, green landscape helps to bed the larger, grander building into the surrounding landscape.

Line

The notion of a frame within a frame is itself an important element of composition.

Notice how the pathways providing access across the large expanse of lawn also act to divide the image up into separate areas of interest.

The most important of those areas is one surrounding the cottage. It’s a perfect example of the notion of a frame within a frame.

And this time the frame is created by a series of lines that create a boundary around the Executioner’s Cottage.

The other interesting way I’ve used a line in this photo is to use the road as a horizon.

The fact that it’s placed about 2/3 up into the frame helps as that’s the classic one to three ratio where the horizon’s often placed in photos and paintings.

Shape

The buildings, including their roofs and windows, are composed of rectangles and triangles. Likewise some of the frames created by the pathways are triangular in shape.

Shapes aren’t the most important element of composition in this image, but they’re there and they do add interest to those particularly parts of the photo.

Texture

Texture is very strong in this image and is particularly evident in the large, lush areas of lawn and trees.

In fact there’s so much texture in this image that it would probably work well as a black and white photo.

The fact that there’s a decent amount of contrast between the relatively light tone buildings and the rooftops also makes this image a good candidate for rendering into black and white.

I’II try that out one day and I’m quite confident it’ll look great. But it’s hard to go past the color version because of the positive associations the color green brings to this image.

Actually I can see this photo being one of those images that works well in both color and black and white, depending upon the context in which it’s shown.

*Value of storytelling and mystery explored at the Hohensalzburg Fortress in Salzburg.*

The Value Of Storytelling and Mystery

Occasionally I run formal, group based photography classes. I like to show this image at the beginning of the first session.

Actually I make it a bit of a game asking participants to pretend they’re six years old and this photo is on the front cover of a big story book with no title printed on the cover.

Naturally they want to know what the story is about and, because they’re only six years old, it’s quite natural for them to imagine that for themselves.

I tell participants that whatever they say can’t be wrong. After all, it’s their story.

Though there’s some variation most folks usually suggest the following:

Servants live in the cottage and lords and ladies in the mansion (a bit like Downton Abbey).
The Wicked Stepmother lives in the palace and Cinderella lives in the cottage.
The Evil Queen lives in the palace and the Huntsman lives in the cottage.

I love playing this game right at the beginning of what folks imagine is a highly technical course.

It allows me to introduce the notion that there’s far more to making great photos than shutter speeds and apertures.

I love watching the tension in the room dissipate with this realization.

For what it’s worth I usually construct these courses around the following criteria:

Technical information and camera handling
Composition
Lighting
Emotion and Connection in Photography
Practical photography sessions

I’ve been teaching photography for many years and what I’ve learned along the way is that if you spend all your time talking about technical stuff your audience will (metaphorically) drown.

The solution is to ensure that sufficient time is given to composition, aspects of lighting, practical photography sessions and the communicative power of photography.

In doing so participants are able to lift themselves up out of the water and spend time in the air and in the light.

It’s an example of why balance is so important in everything we do.