I discovered the Executioner’s Cottage in Salzburg, Austria by chance. It's a delightful place that looks like it’s straight out of a storybook. If I didn’t know it’s grisly and macabre history, I’d want to live there.

The Executioner’s Cottage in Salzburg is incredibly cute and its setting is extremely picturesque. Yet, despite its storybook location in Europe’s most beautiful city, it's the cottage's connection with some of the more bloody and brutal aspects of Salzburg's history that makes it so fascinating.

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 explained how expensive local 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.

The cottage is 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 In Salzburg

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.

That’s an important fact in this image because the lush, green landscape helps to bed the larger, grander building in the background into the surrounding landscape.

Line

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

Notice how the pathways, that provide 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 the one surrounding the cottage. It’s a perfect example of the notion of a frame within a frame with the series of lines creating a boundary around the Executioner’s Cottage.

The other interesting way I’ve used line to enhance the composition of this photo is to use the road behind the Executioner’s Cottage 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 is 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 darker 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 and the meaning I hope would be derived from it.

The Value Of Storytelling and Mystery

Occasionally I run formal, group based photography classes. When I do I like to show my image of the Executioner’s Cottage in Salzburg 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. But, given they’re only six years old (in this virtual world I’ve created for them), it’s quite natural for them to imagine what the story is about for themselves.

I make the exercise as easy and non-confrontational as possible by telling participants that whatever they say can’t be wrong. After all, it’s their story.

Though there’s some variation in the story they tell, 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. You see folks sign up for a photography course thinking it’ll be all about their camera.

But that’s a bit like signing up to a course in architecture thinking it’s all about hammers and other tools used in the construction industry.

Needless to say being able to create beautiful photos goes far beyond understanding how to use your camera. It’s important, but it’s only one component of the creative endeavor we call photography.

So you see this innocent little game allows me to introduce the notion that there’s far more to making great photos than shutter speeds, apertures and iso.

I love watching the tension in the room dissipate and participants begin to relax 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. What I’ve learned along the way is if you spend all your time talking about technical stuff your audience will (metaphorically) drown under the weight of so much information.

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 achieving balance is so important in everything we do.

Before The Executioner’s Axe Falls

I feel that the success of this image has a lot to do with the visual balance that’s been achieved between the man made and natural elements in the underlying composition.

It’s an important relationship that landscape architects would have been very much aware of when designing great country estates.

I believe this image proves that photos don’t have to be dramatic or confrontational to be considered successful.

Sometimes our soul cries out for a simple, peaceful image that contains just enough mystery or intrigue to encourage us to wonder.

And, perhaps, one last opportunity to dream of travel, just before the executioner’s axe falls.

Glenn Guy, Travel Photography Guru